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Giovanni Auletta
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — No followers. And two races postponed.
The ladies’s mixed that was slated to open the Alpine snowboarding world championships on Monday was postponed as a result of heavy snowfall. Then organizers additionally pushed again the boys’s super-G from Tuesday to Thursday to permit extra time to clear the course.
It’s a tough begin for an occasion that was already disadvantaged of followers as a result of a nationwide ban on spectators at sports activities competitions in Italy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A meter (3 ft) of snow has fallen since Sunday, and extra was coming down on Monday afternoon, making it almost not possible to create a tough and dependable racing floor.
The forecast requires higher climate from Thursday.
“I’m anxiously awaiting Thursday so I can see my mountains and present how stunning they’re,” mentioned Alberto Ghezze, who’s answerable for the programs for the organizing committee.
The beginning of the worlds has been moved to Tuesday with the ladies’s super-G, whereas the ladies’s mixed was rescheduled for subsequent Monday — which was a reserve day.
There are separate pace programs for women and men and snow elimination started earlier on the ladies’s course.
Conscious of the forecast, organizers had already swapped the 2 parts of the mixed, placing the slalom first and operating the super-G because the second leg. The winner of the occasion is set by including collectively the skiers’ occasions from the 2 runs.
Mikaela Shiffrin, Petra Vlhova, Michelle Gisin and Federica Brignone are among the many favorites in mixed.
Greater than 300 course employees have been working day and night time to push snow off the course.
“I’ve obtained sufficient males,” Ghezze mentioned. “It’s the snow that has to cease.”
Making issues extra sophisticated for course employees is the chance of avalanches.
“We’ve had 5 meters (15 ft) of snowfall in a month,” Ghezze mentioned. “So we’ve obtained to ensure everyone seems to be working in protected circumstances.”
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Extra AP snowboarding: https://apnews.com/hub/skiing and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports activities
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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf
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