IOC chief Jacques Rogge was swept up in Vancouver's Olympic weather worries on Monday as Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger prepared to run the gauntlet of Games protesters.
Rogge admitted that global warming was becoming a serious concern as organisers of the 2010 Winter Olympics, which get underway on Friday, continued to wrestle with the problems caused by a lack of snow at one of their showpiece venues.
Cypress Mountain, just outside of Vancouver, is the site for the freestyle and snowboard events.
But it has been plagued by a lack of snow caused by the warm temperatures which have seen Vancouver enjoying unseasonal highs of around 10 degrees Celsius.
Lorry-loads of snow have been carted in to the venue and media banned from visiting in an effort to get it ready in time.
"Global warming of course is a worry, it is a worry for the entire world," Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, said.
"But we are doing good research on this. There is also the improvement in artificial snow machines and everything that has been put in place in Cypress Mountain, for example, to alleviate changes in meteorology."
Snow, ferried down from higher elevations, will continue to be dumped at Cypress Mountain until today.
"The final snow will be brought in on Wednesday and we will be ready to go," said Dave Cobb, the VANOC deputy chief executive.
Cobb added that there were no regrets of not having scheduled the freestyle events at Whistler which has enjoyed high snowfalls and will be the venue for skiing, ski jumping and the sliding events.
"We could have had weather problems at Whistler and having more events there would have added to the challenges of getting people up there," he said.
"Cypress will be fantastic. When the events start, no-one will say we should have moved to Whistler."
Meanwhile, as Vancouver geared up for Friday's opening ceremony, organisers were also bracing to face more protesters keen to air their grievances over the homeless, poverty as well as Native rights.
The torch relay, which has covered 45,000km since October, is expected to be targeted, but protesters may face an intimidating adversary in the shape of Terminator star Schwarzenegger.
The former movie-star was named on Monday as one of the torch bearers who will help ferry the flame to the opening ceremony at the city's BC Place.
"We are not worried about disruptions," said John Furlong, the chief executive of organising committee VANOC.
"If people come to express their views, we hope it's respectful and it's done peacefully. We hope that people who have waited 10 years to see the ceremonies will be allowed to do so.
"We have a great security team and they will determine how it's managed in and outside the BC Place."
Schwarzenegger was named as one of a number of celebrity torch relay runners.
He will hand the flame to Sebastian Coe, the head of the 2012 London Olympics organising committee, while Canadian singing star Michael Buble will be the final runner tomorrow.