Winter Olympics: Heavy Snowfall in Beijing Disrupted Ski Competitions

Heavy snowfall has thrown the Winter Olympics program into chaos, with temperatures expected to drop below -22°C for the Beijing Games. Some ski slopestyle contests had to be rescheduled due to weather at the Genting Snow Park.
Due to heavy snow and low visibility, the women's freeski qualifying was postponed on Sunday.
Due to challenging alpine skiing conditions, 33 of the 87 men's giant slalom starters were unable to complete the race.

When asked how little he could see in the stormy snow at the National Alpine Skiing Centre in Yanqing, Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, who placed fourth in the first run, used an expletive.

On Monday, further snow is expected, with temperatures in the mountain dropping to -35C with the windchill.
Unfortunately, the fresh snow added to the difficulty of the Games, which had already been criticized for being the first Winter Olympics to rely almost entirely on manufactured snow.

Artificial snow, which will be utilized at Bejing 2022 „poses tough environmental questions“ according to ecological specialists, because it requires more than 222 million liters of water to generate snow conditions.

The women's freeski slopestyle runs, featuring Kirsty Muir and Katie Summerhayes of Great Britain, have been postponed till Monday.
The top 12 qualify for the finals, which have been moved to Tuesday.
The men's qualification, in which James Woods will compete for Great Britain, will now take place on Tuesday, with the finals taking place on Wednesday.

A women's downhill training run has also been canceled.
"The snow is a little uneven, so it's quite aggressive in spots, a little slick," said Kristoffersen.
He thinks that it was difficult for everyone.
On whether it was safe to race, he added: "Definitely. The light is more than skiable, that's for sure, it just makes it difficult."

Away from the mountains, there was a lot of snow in Beijing, which is rare for February in China's capital.
The city typically receives less than a half-inch of snow every month but was covered with a thick layer on Sunday.

However, the downfall, on the other hand, had little effect on the city's Games program.
Events including curling, ice hockey, and speed skating took place in indoor arenas in the Beijing zone.