Wind causes cancellations, delays, rescheduling for Games

Pyeongchang, South Korea (dpa) - Strong winds and sub-freezing temperatures made life difficult for competitors, spectators and officials at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Sunday.The men‘s downhill in alpine skiing was an early casualty of gusting winds, and the women‘s snowboard slopestyle qualifying was also cancelled and will not now be held at all.The final will instead be held on Monday in a two-run format instead of three runs with all competitors qualified, organizers said.Strong winds at the Alpensia Nordic Park also led to a two-hour delay in training for the men‘s Nordic combined ski-jumping.Wind conditions are expected to continue for at least another day, Pyeongchang organizing committee spokesman Sung Baik You said.The men‘s downhill is now due to take place at 11 am (0200 GMT) on Thursday. The men‘s super-g event, which had been scheduled originally on that day, will move to Friday.The race jury has also cancelled Monday‘s downhill training for the alpine combined event due to the weather forecast."We kind of expected this downhill to be postponed due to wind," US alpine coach Sasha Rearick said."But at the same time the guys were charged up and ready to go. With this being an outdoor sport, it is not abnormal.""This gives us time to focus on slalom training for the combined, which is what we‘ll do tomorrow," he added.A team captains‘ meeting is scheduled for Monday at 4 pm (0700 GMT) where further details on scheduling will be discussed.Competitors and spectators at other outside events also had to contend with temperatures well below freezing and a chill factor in the afternoon close to minus 20 Celsius at the Alpensia ski centre, where the men‘s cross country 30km skiathlon was held.The final two runs in the men‘s luge, men‘s biathlon sprint and women‘s freestyle moguls were the last events as evening temperatures dropped even further.