Winter Olympics 2022 - Heavy blizzard prompts visibility complaints at start of men’s giant slalom
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Updated 13/02/2022 at 09:29 GMT
The conditions at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre were not enough to delay the men’s giant slalom race, but a heavy blizzard made visibility difficult during the first run. Luca De Aliprandini and Mathieu Faivre both gestured that it was difficult to see, with every competitor struggling to put in a clean run. Watch every moment of Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on discovery+.
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Luca De Aliprandini and Mathieu Faivre were among the skiers complaining about visibility after treacherous conditions greeted the start of the men’s giant slalom at the Winter Olympics.
There was a delay to the women’s freeski slopestyle qualifying, but the giant slalom race was given the all-clear despite a heavy blizzard at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre.
Regulations stipulate that skiers must be able to see three gates ahead of them, but the early frontrunners were evidently questioning whether this was the case during their opening runs.
De Aliprandini went out second after Henrik Kristoffersen, and after the Italian crossed the line 0.37 seconds off the pace he signalled in the finish area that he was struggling to see on his way down the slope.
Race favourite Marco Odermatt set the pace with a 1:02.93, navigating his way through the falling snow despite a few errors.
“He’s struggling with the snow and the setup,” Nick Fellows said on Eurosport’s commentary. “It’s far from over yet, but that’s the start he was hoping for. He looks rather bemused in the finish area, there were one or two turns that he would describe as awful.”
Faivre was then comfortably in the green but ended up posting a time just behind Odermatt, and he also complained about the visibility in the finish area, gesturing with his hand in front of his mask to suggest how tough the conditions were.
By the time Alexis Pinturault went out, the two-time Olympic bronze medallist in the giant slalom was barely visible from certain camera angles. “We can barely see him now,” former Olympic skier Finlay Mickel said on commentary.
Mickel added: “Nobody is having a perfect run, everybody is making errors.”
Meanwhile, Fellows said: “The race jury are in continual communication as to whether this race is fair, but so far so good.”
Just 0.12 seconds separated the top four, with Odermatt ahead of Stefan Brennsteiner, the Austrian in a surprise second after the first run.
Faivre was third, 0.08 seconds behind, with Kristoffersen fourth, France’s Thibaut Favrot fifth and De Aliprandini in sixth almost half-a-second behind.
Kristoffersen said afterwards: “The conditions are a little bit uneven, the visibility is not terrible, it’s more than possible to ski, but it’s not great. When it’s a little bit uneven, a little bit more water in spots and icy, it’s difficult when the visibility is like this. My run didn’t feel good at all, I thought if I’m under one second behind the leader I should be happy, if I end up just 0.12 behind the leader then I’m happy.”
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