Snow forces cancellation of men’s super G

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. — The first men’s race of the World Alpine Ski Championships in Beaver Creek was canceled Wednesday morning. The event was scheduled to go off at 11 a.m. local time, but due to overnight and morning snowfall in the neighborhood of 4-6 inches, officials promptly canceled the race an hour before the start.

“The forecast last night was for it to snow a lot. It didn’t. It snowed very little,” said U.S. men’s head coach Sasha Rearick. “During inspection, it started to snow heavily. The wind started to pick up. The track was in good shape on the race line. the low lines needed a lot of work and was doable to fix. The jury made a decision based on the forecast coming in. There was going to be a less than fair race with the conditions. The decided to postpone tomorrow.”

Wind and low-lying clouds were also a factor in the jury’s decision, but with a forecast of continued accumulations throughout the day, snowfall management was the primary concern and officials opted to cancel the race rather than postpone.

“If it doesn’t snow too much, they’ll leave the course in place and it will be the same course,” added Rearick. “If it snows a lot and have to bring cats in to move the snow off the hill, the entire hill, then they will have to reset.”

The men’s super G is expected to be rescheduled for Thursday pending confirmation of the program tonight at team captains meeting. A new bib draw will also take place at team captains.

“I think the course is a nice course set,” said Rearick. “It had some swing on the top, which challenged the technical side of skiers. There’s one difficult section, at pumphouse, had to ski smart. More super-g flowed with the hill very nicely. Therefore, the athletes can really charge and move with the terrain naturally, which I thought was nice. It’s a nice set.”