Winter Olympics: heavy snowfall disrupts the Games
It was the last thing anyone expected, said Tom Whipple in The Times. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, last Sunday, it “began to snow”. It’s often very cold in northeast China in winter, but actual snow is a rarity, which is why these Games are the first in history to rely completely on the artificial kind. They may be “the greatest celebration of snow sports on the planet”, but genuine snow wasn’t part of the plan. And when it did materialise its effect was disruptive, as the fresh snow falling on the icier artificial kind caused surfaces to become unstable. Several events had to be postponed or cancelled; thousands of staff were sent to clear snow from competition courses; and when events did go ahead, there were many more crashes and disqualifications than usual.
Not everyone, however, was disadvantaged, said Michael Hincks on Eurosport.com. Benjamin Alexander, Jamaica’s first-ever Alpine Olympic skier, achieved a position in the men’s giant slalom – 46th – that was far higher than expected. True, the 38-year-old former DJ, who lived in Britain for much of his life before moving to Wyoming when he took up skiing six years ago, came last of the skiers who actually completed the course – finishing 32 seconds behind the 45th placed competitor. But, due in part to the poor weather, 41 skiers didn’t make it to the bottom at all. “I’ve performed better than some of the best in the world,” Alexander exulted afterwards. “They crashed, and that’s a fact.” The skier added that his two ultra-cautious runs down the slope – in conditions, admittedly, of severely restricted visibility – were “for everyone who thinks they don’t belong in skiing”.
For Team GB, these Games have so far proved an unbridled disappointment, said Owen Slot in The Times. Look at the medal table, and “you wouldn’t see anything to suggest that the British team have even arrived”. The last time Britain failed to win a single medal at a Winter Olympics was more than 30 years ago, in 1990; at each of the last two Winter Olympics, Britain has managed five medals. At this point, three medals “looks ambitious”. It’s too early to write Team GB off, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian. Several of the events where its best chances lie – including the men’s curling and the four-man bobsleigh – take place on the final weekend. And in any case, a medal-less showing Beijing wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “It might encourage UK Sport to ask what it can do better” – including restoring Team GB’s “tech advantage”, which it has arguably recently squandered, and finding ways to deepen its talent pool, as well as tackling “the chronic lack of diversity in Britain’s Olympic teams”.