BEIJING: The Winter Olympics finally look like, well, the Winter Olympics.

Real snow fell in Beijing on Sunday for the first time since the Olympics began, giving the city the appearance and feel of a real Winter Games. There was fresh snow in the mountains as well, where all events have been contested on artificial snow.

While the snow was mostly a welcome sight, up in the mountains it affected visibility and made it tougher for ski racers to make it down the hill, especially in the first run of the two-leg giant slalom.

Marco Odermatt of Switzerland handled the snow and poor visibility better than anyone else and won his first Olympic gold medal.

“I really risked everything in the second run because I wanted not just the medal, I wanted the gold medal,” Odermatt said. “It’s difficult because you can lose everything but today it paid off.”

While a light snow fell Saturday, it came down a lot harder on Sunday, the first time it snowed during an Alpine race during the Beijing Olympics. The heavy snow forced the second run to be postponed by 1 hour, 15 minutes. During the delay, workers cleared snow from the course with snow blowers and shovels.

“It was a hard day, with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs, Odermatt said. It was more than five hours for me, it was such a long time to re-think everything and it was hard to stay focused. I tried to sleep some minutes in between.

I actually never dreamt about it but now it still feels like a dream.

Many other skiers had a rough day on the course known as The Ice River at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Centre.

“It’s a shame what the weather is like. I was hoping for the sun, like on all the other days. Couldn’t see anything,” said Luca de Aliprandini of Italy, who was sixth after the first run but skied off course and didn’t finish the second run.

A second women’s downhill training run scheduled for Sunday was canceled.

The snow affected the men’s cross-country relay ski race so much that workers used leaf blowers to clear it out of the tracks. The snow made the ski tracks slow, especially on the first two classic ski legs.

Just like in the women’s race, the Russian team opened a lead on the first leg and then held on for the gold medal. Sergey Ustiugov maintained more than a minute lead on the last lap over the two-man chasing group of Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway and Maurice Manificat of France.

Norway’s Marte Olsbu Roeiseland held her focus in the blowing snow and shot cleanly in the last standing stop to win the women’s biathlon 10km pursuit race. It was her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics and fourth medal overall.

In the men’s race, Quentin Fillon Maillet of France hit all 20 of his targets despite howling wind and skied to his second Olympic gold, and fourth medal overall, in the 12.5km pursuit.

VALIEVA FATE IN BALANCE

Sport’s top court convened on Sunday to decide if 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva can compete again at the Olympics after she failed a drugs test.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was to hold a video hearing before delivering its verdict on Monday afternoon, just a day before Valieva is scheduled to compete in the women’s singles short program, one of the most closely watched events at the Olympics. The overwhelming favourite, she drew the 26th starting spot Sunday among the 30 in the event.

Valieva, who became the first woman ever to land a quadruple jump in Olympic competition as Russia won team gold on Monday, tested positive for trimetazidine after competing at an event in St Petersburg on December 25.

Erin Jackson won gold in the 500 metres to become the first Black woman to win a speedskating medal at the Winter Olympics. With a time of 37.04 seconds, she gave the Americans their first speedskating medal at the Beijing Games. The 29-year-old Jackson joins fellow American Shani Davis as the only Black athletes to win Olympic speedskating gold medals.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2022