Warm weather scuttles Zakopane NC mass start

ZAKOPANE, Poland — Warm weather forced nordic combined organizers Saturday to cancel a World Cup mass start event. There was no immediate word on possible rescheduling as the season heads into its final stretch.
ZAKOPANE, Poland — Warm weather forced nordic combined organizers Saturday to cancel a World Cup mass start event. There was no immediate word on possible rescheduling as the season heads into its final stretch.
    "They told us at 7:30 this morning, as we were finishing breakfast, there would be no competition today. It was cold earlier in the week, but it's gotten warm, about 10 degrees Celsius [50 F.] and the snow in the cross country stadium just melted. The jumping hill is okay – not great but OK – but it was so wet they couldn't hold the mass start race," U.S. head coach Lasse Ottesen said. "It's very disappointing because we lost two competitions last week in Liberec [Czech Republic] and now this.
    "We went for a ski yesterday and the 2.5K track was a mess. We only did one round because we would have ruined our skis. They didn't start to prepare the stadium until Thursday and you can't start getting ready for a World Cup just 48 hours ahead. I don't know what they were thinking, but this is really bad. They're supposed to hold World Juniors for combined next week and that could be in trouble, too."
    Ottesen said organizers were expected to make a late-night announcement on the sprint scheduled for Sunday. Uli Wehling, International Ski Federation competition director for combined, also reportedly was checking into whether it would be possible to schedule an additional event next weekend in Lahti, Finland, and the following weekend at Holmenkollen in Oslo.