Heavy snowfall, flat light and poor visibility resulted in the postponement of Sunday’s women’s freeski slopestyle qualifications at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, leading to a full reschedule of both the women’s and men’s slopestyle competition programme here at Genting Snow Park.
Snow, fog and some gusty winds descended onto the Beijing 2022 slopestyle course just before the start of training on Sunday, increasing in volume as training kicked into gear and forcing a delay in qualifications for officials to assess the situation in hopes for a better window in the afternoon.
However, with the weather holding true to forecast and growing increasingly poor throughout the delay period, concerns about athlete safety and the weather’s impact on performance lead to the decision to call off women’s slopestyle qualification for the day and reschedule the entire slopestyle competition programme, moving all phases back one day while maintaining the previous scheduled start times.
This means that women’s qualification runs will begin at 10:00 local time on Monday, 14 February, followed by women’s finals on Tuesday beginning at 9:30, men’s qualifications on Tuesday beginning at 12:30, and men’s finals closing out Beijing 2022 slopestyle action beginning at 9:30 on Wednesday.
Weather is expected to be much better on Monday and through the following days, and hopes are high for slopestyle competitions that allow all the athletes on hand to display freeskiing at its highest level this week in China.
Updated Beijing 2022 freeski slopestyle competition programme:
Monday, Feb 14th:
- Slopestyle Freeski Women Qualification: 10:00 - 12:00h
Tuesday, Feb 15th:
- Slopestyle Freeski Women Final: 9:30h - 11:00h
- Slopestyle Freeski Men Qualification: 12:30h - 14:35h
Wednesday, Feb 16th:
- Slopestyle Freeski men Final: 9.30- 11:05h