View / Saudi’s winter games delay is a reality check on gigaprojects

Saudi Arabia has confirmed what has long been speculated: It won’t be ready to host the Asian Winter Games in 2029.

Four years ago, the kingdom won the rights to hold the event at Trojena, a planned ski resort in the mountains of NEOM. Back then, the idea of holding winter sports in a country known more for blisteringly hot deserts than snowy peaks seemed absurd. Still, people working on the project said there was a case for a short ski season in the Sarawat Mountains.

Ultimately, their problem was less the weather than the ambition.

The indefinite postponement is in many ways a reflection of the broader problems at NEOM and the kingdom’s largest gigaprojects. Ambitions often vastly outmatched what was technically feasible or economically sustainable.

Moving the Asian Winter Games signals a new willingness to face reality. The government and PIF do not have unlimited resources — no one does — and capital is better deployed on projects more likely to yield a long-term return.

Ministers have become increasingly frank: They say there’s no shame in abandoning projects when the numbers simply don’t add up. The Asian Winter Games is the first casualty of this new mentality. It won’t be the last.