WICKED WEATHER, FROSTY FALLOUT
The Olympics are having some trouble handling the winter part of the equation
Five days into Pyeongchang 2018, the biggest problem of these Winter Olympics is something everyone probably should have seen coming: Winter.
Bitter cold and harsh winds have affected everything from the opening ceremony to some of the signature events, and have left organizers scrambling to keep schedules moving, in at least one instance leading to complaints from competitors.
The first sign that these would be a Games unlike other in recent memory — held in the moderate climates of Sochi and Vancouver — came days before the official opening, when a news conference was bogged down by questions about the weather.
Bundle up, was basically the answer then, and it has continued to be a mantra. Temperatures routinely reach - 15 C, colder at night when some events are held under the lights.
If it were just a matter of forcing visitors to wear their woollies, the cold would be less of an issue, but it has already had a material impact on the Games themselves. The men’s downhill race, the traditional opener of the alpine contests, was moved from Monday morning due to high winds, with gusts up to 75 kilometres an hour, and is scheduled to go off on Thursday morning at Jeongseon Alpine Centre.
But multiple training days have been cancelled, and even some of those that have been held took place on a truncated course, to keep skiers out of the dangerous winds at the top of the course.
The women’s giant slalom, another high- profile event, was similarly rescheduled due to high winds at the Yongpyong Alpine Centre.
Those two events have now been scheduled essentially on top of one another — the first women’s giant slalom scheduled for Thursday morning at Yongpyong, then the men’s downhill at Jeongseon, then the second women’s GS back at Yongpyong. For the broadcasters that pay the International Olympic Committee huge sums of money to televise such events, having them delayed and then ultimately compressed into a short live window is far from ideal.
Those television concerns are the only explanation anyone can figure out for why the women’s snowboard slopestyle final went ahead Monday morning, despite fierce winds at Phoenix Snow Park ( that’s three separate venues, spread an hour’s drive from one another, that have been buffeted by strong winds).
Or rather, that’s the only explanation that anyone can figure out, other than the officially stated one.
The International Ski Federation said: “The first priority for FIS is the safety of the athletes and FIS would never stage a competition if this could not be assured.”
Sure assurances are difficult to square with what took place Monday, when only nine out of 50 attempted runs at Phoenix were completed. Riders were repeatedly blown in mid- air either beyond or short of their intended landing zones, and several competitors said afterward the conditions were too dangerous for a slopestyle event.
Spencer O’Brien of Alert Bay, B. C., who couldn’t complete either of her runs, said the decision to hold the event was particularly puzzling given that officials a day earlier cancelled qualifying runs due to strong winds.
“It’s interesting, because they postponed us yesterday and the weather was worse today,” O’Brien said.
“But that’s kind of the way it goes sometimes.”
It is the way it goes, yes, when factors other than rider safety are given priority. It’s almost certainly not a coincidence that, with American Jamie Anderson as the defending gold medallist in women’s slopestyle, the final was scheduled for a window that would put it in prime time in much of the United States.
The forecast in Pyeongchang on Wednesday calls for temperatures around freezing at midday and dropping to - 12 C at night. Strong winds are also expected.