Beijing 2022 Olympics – Alpine Skiing – Training – National Alpine Skiing Center, Yanqing District, Beijing, China – February 5, 2022. A skier runs down the slope after training was cancelled. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

YANQING, China, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt has hit out at Olympic ski organizers after Saturday’s downhill training was canceled with just three runners completing the course.

High winds prompted organizers to end the third practice race for Sunday’s opening event with Austrian Matthias Mayer, Italian Christof Innerhofer and favorite Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway the only riders able to hit the trail.

“Due to the current situation with high winds and no window in the decreasing wind forecast, in the interest of safety the jury and the organizer have decided to cancel today’s race,” said said the International Ski Federation (FIS) in a statement. declaration.

But Odermatt, the overall World Cup leader and a downhill contender, was unhappy with how the situation had been handled.

“It’s just not fair and for me the big, big issue is how they (the race jury) communicate with us the athletes,” he said.

“They just make a decision at 11.15am, something like that, cancel training, even though the last two days we started an hour later.

“They don’t even ask what we think. After two or three sentences we spoke with the FIS, the jury, they turned off the radio and didn’t answer any more,” he added.

“Like that, it just doesn’t work.”

Odermatt said there would be a slight advantage for the trio who were able to complete a third round on the unknown course which has never been contested before.

“Whether it’s in Wengen or Kitzbuehel, everyone knows the slope but here everything is new, everything is different,” said the Swiss. “So every race really helps you find the perfect setup or line.

“Hopefully tomorrow the wind will calm down and we can have a fair race.”

SAFETY FIRST

The windy conditions in the upper stages of the course clearly had an impact on the trio training, and Kilde felt the organizers had made the right decision.

“It was fun to ski, but with the wind it’s a bit crazy because you gain so much speed in certain places and then suddenly you lose speed and on the jumps I did 60 meters, I think – I was in equilibrium, thank God.

“It’s good that they called it off. It’s coming from all directions, so it’s really hard to control it.

“Then suddenly it’s nothing and then you have full wind, then nothing – then sideways, backstrokes and also on the jumps today, it’s coming from below.”

But Austrian Daniel Hemetsberger said skiers should have been given the option to account for the wind.

“I’m a little angry because I wanted to go, I wanted to ski,” he added. “The wind was really strong in the middle part, but I think we had the opportunity to slow down there.

“We’re all adult athletes, we’re all professionals, we could do it.”

German coach Christian Schwaiger said it was the right decision to stop the race, but wondered why organizers hadn’t waited.

“None of us understand why they called it off so quickly. It was okay to cut it off, it was borderline, it wasn’t safe,” he said.

“But we could have waited another half hour or an hour. We have plenty of time. This practice race would naturally have been extremely important for many nations.”

Race referee Markus Waldner said the cancellation decision was based solely on safety.

“Of course I can accept all this criticism coming from riders, from some coaches, that it’s a three rider advantage now,” he said.

“But this is a case of force majeure. We are an outdoor sport and we always make decisions in terms of safety. For safety reasons, we have taken this decision, very simple.”

Strong winds are again forecast for race day, but Waldner said they expect the gusts to subside by race time.

Sunday’s downhill opens the alpine skiing events at the Yanqing complex with the women in action Monday in the giant slalom.

Reporting by Simon Evans, additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Peter Rutherford & Shri Navaratnam

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