The debut of alpine skiing in these Beijing Winter Olympics will have to wait.
The wind forced the organizers to postpone the men's downhill, the flagship race of the Games, initially scheduled for this Sunday morning (4 a.m. in France, 11 a.m. in China).
After three successive postponements of one hour from the start, and faced with the still persistent gusts on the Yanqing track, they finally decided to send the skiers back to the Olympic village.
She could argue on Monday.
Gust-related problems on "The Rock", the name of this route inaugurated for the occasion, have continued to rise crescendo since the first training session on Thursday.
Friday, the wind had already disrupted the second general rehearsal, the Frenchman Johan Clarey seeing it as the "black point" of the track.
On Saturday, only three athletes were able to set off in complicated conditions, with gusts of more than 60 km / h, before training was simply canceled, angering other competitors.
Scheduled on the same day as the female giant
“We will have updated information every half hour and make our decision.
We will have to play with the wind, ”warned the director of men's races for the International Ski Federation (FIS), Markus Waldner before Sunday's race.
At 1 p.m. in China, the final decision was not to take the risk of launching a potentially distorted race.
This is not the first time that the race has suffered this kind of unforeseen event.
In 2018, at the Pyeongchang Olympics, the wind had already postponed the meeting of the speed pros by one day.
In Nagano, in 1998, the contenders for the podium had to wait four days before setting off.
A new slot must now be found for the race.
The downhill could be postponed to Monday, the same date as the women's giant slalom where Blues flag bearer Tessa Worley is among the favorites.
According to the current schedule, this is the last day that the speed track is not occupied before February 18.
But in the past, the organizers of the Olympic Games have shown their ability to adapt schedules to the vagaries of the weather.