‘I really couldn’t see’: Heavy snow disrupts Beijing Olympics

A worker shovels snow in preparation for freestyle ski and snowboard events at Genting Snow Park prior to the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Zhangjiakou, China, Jan. 31, 2022.

Heavy snow fell throughout Sunday at the Beijing Olympics disrupting several events and forcing athletes to battle through treacherous conditions in the pursuit of gold.

Californian-born Chinese sensation Eileen Gu was among the competitors affected when her bid for a second gold medal was temporarily derailed by the postponement of qualifying for the freeski slopestyle.

The second of three training runs for the women’s downhill skiing was cancelled and women’s freestyle skiing aerials qualification was also postponed.

Environmentalists in the build-up to the Games in the Chinese capital had voiced concern about an Olympics taking place in one of the driest parts of China and relying almost entirely on man-made snow.

But on Sunday it was the opposite problem — too much snow, together with freezing fog and temperatures plunging to minus six degrees Celsius (22F) by evening.

The women’s biathlon 10km pursuit did go ahead in Zhangjiakou, outside Beijing, but Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff, who took bronze, said conditions were “very heavy”.

“There was a lot of snow and a lot of slow snow. It was a tough race and I had to work my ass off to get a medal,” she said.

Silver medallist Elvira Oeberg of Sweden said it was “one of the hardest pursuits I’ve ever raced”.

The men’s giant slalom went ahead in what competitors described as tough conditions in Yanqing, north of Beijing.

“There were moments where I didn’t really know where I was or where I was going,” bronze medallist Mathieu Faivre of France said of his first run.

“I really couldn’t see anything,” his compatriot Alexis