By Winni Zhou and Mari Saito
ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) – Gusts of bone-chilling wind and hard, man-made snow have made it tough for athletes at the Beijing Olympics, with even veteran snowboarders complaining about the conditions on Saturday.
The air temperature dropped to -20.4 degree Celsius (-4.72°F) at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou right before the start of Saturday’s slopestyle qualifiers for women, the bone-chilling wind leaving many volunteers with frozen eyelashes.
Athletes said the extreme cold and strong gusts of wind posed serious risks as they slid down a course designed to look like the Great Wall.
“It’s cold! It’s hard to keep your core temperature warm and then doing tricks feels a little bit more intimidating as you are just, like, stiff,” said two-time Olympic gold medalist Jamie Anderson.
American Anderson added that the wind would not necessarily blow the boarders off course but it “just kind of scares you”, while the man-made snow was not the most enjoyable to ride.
The Beijing Winter Olympics is the first Games to use almost 100% artificial snow, deploying more than 100 snow generators and 300 snow-cannons working flat out to cover the ski slopes.
“That was pretty gnarly so I’m happy to be walking away in one piece,” said American Hailey Langland after she completed her second run.
Langland said the wind was not blowing straight downhill but uphill, swirling between the jumps that made it difficult to gauge speed to land already difficult and dangerous tricks.
“The wind was a little bit tricky because sometimes you can feel it on the course to throw you off the game. You just really have to adapt,” said Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand, who led Saturday’s qualifying session.
(Writing by Winni Zhou; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
