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American Mikaela Shiffrin’s last shot at a Beijing Winter Olympics medal in jeopardy because of one thing out of everybody’s management — the climate.
BEIJING, China — The final Alpine skiing race of the Beijing Olympics was postponed Saturday (Friday night time within the U.S.) due to too-strong wind, and a call was not instantly given about when — and even whether or not — the combined workforce parallel occasion could be rescheduled.
Gusts at as much as about 40 mph led to the announcement of two one-hour delays, earlier than the Worldwide Ski Federation ultimately mentioned it could not be attainable to carry the competitors in any respect on Saturday.
Snow was being blown round and the blue and crimson gate flags have been whipping alongside the race course generally known as Ice River on the Nationwide Alpine Snowboarding Middle in Yanqing zone, about 55 miles northwest of central Beijing. Gondola service as much as the race website was paused.
The ski federation mentioned a gathering was being held “to debate the potential rescheduling of the occasion,” which was presupposed to be Mikaela Shiffrin‘s sixth of the Beijing Video games — and her final likelihood to carry dwelling an Olympic medal from China to go alongside the three she earned earlier in her profession.
The 2022 Olympics finish Sunday.
This was solely the second time the workforce occasion has been a part of the Alpine program at a Winter Video games after making its debut on the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
Athletes go head-to-head on parallel big slalom programs throughout a sequence of heats, and every nation is represented by each ladies and men.
Solely one of many 10 athletes who earned a person Alpine gold in Beijing was listed on the workforce rosters launched Friday: Austria’s Johannes Strolz. He gained the boys’s mixed final week and likewise picked up a silver in slalom on Wednesday.
Shiffrin was named to the U.S. roster that was slated to face Slovakia within the opening spherical; different workforce members have been Paula Moltzan, AJ Damage, Tommy Ford, River Radamus and Luke Winters.
Shiffrin’s trio of medals from previous Olympics embrace two golds, however her greatest displaying in 5 particular person occasions in China was ninth place within the super-G.
In any other case, she was 18th within the downhill and ended up with “Did Not End” outcomes subsequent to her identify for 3 races: big slalom, slalom and Alpine mixed.
The United States collected only one of the 30 individual medals in Alpine — Ryan Cochran-Siegle’s silver in super-G — the nation’s lowest whole since additionally getting only one on the 1998 Nagano Olympics.
Switzerland led the Beijing standings after the person occasions with 9 medals, together with a report 5 golds.
Different first-round matchups that have been deliberate for the workforce occasion: Switzerland vs. China; Italy vs. Russia; Norway vs. Poland; France vs. Czech Republic; Germany vs. Sweden; and Slovenia vs. Canada.
There have been 15 nations entered in a 16-team bracket, so top-ranked Austria acquired a first-round bye.
4 years in the past, Switzerland gained gold within the workforce occasion, with Austria incomes the silver and Norway the bronze.
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