THE 1998 SOLYMPICS - brought to you by SOL | Snowboarding Online

NEWS:

Women's GS Postponed Due to Weather
by Press Release

SHIGA KOGEN, Japan, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Heavy snowfall forced the postponement of the women's giant slalom Olympic snowboarding event on Monday, with organisers rescheduling the race for Tuesday.

The International Ski Federation (FIS), which is organising all �snowboard� events, said the race, originally scheduled to be run on Monday at 0930 am local time (0030 GMT) would now be staged on Tuesday at 0930 am.

``Due to the weather conditions, we were forced to take the decision to postpone the race,'' FIS spokesman Toni Reiter said.

``The race will now take place, weather permitting, on Tuesday at the same time as scheduled for Monday,'' he added.

As forecast, about 30 cm of snow fell overnight at the Shiga Kogen venue. Though hundreds of army and Olympic officials worked furiously to prepare the course, another storm dumped more snow, making visibility poor and leaving fresh snow on the piste.

The race was initially delayed until 1200 pm (0300 GMT) but with the snow showing no signs of relenting, officials said they had no option but to delay the race.

``As I said before, we have two extra days, Tuesday and Wednesday, to run the event, so there was no need to force anything,'' FIS official Howard Peterson told Reuters.

Snowboarding made its Olympic debut on Sunday with the men's giant slalom, which was won by Canada's Ross Rebagliati. The race was delayed during the second run by about 10 minutes when heavy fog and snow swept over the Shiga Kogen resort some 50 km north-east of Nagano.

It was the second event at the Games to be postponed by bad weather. The Alpine skiing men's downhill was put back to Wednesday after fog and snow prevented it going ahead on Sunday.

Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service

OTHER NEWS
Wrong Side of the Fence: The Olympic Men's GS Sun. (Feb. 08 @ 1:09:PM est)

Racing Rules Sun. (Feb. 08 @ 1:09:PM est)

Games On: The Opening Ceremony Sat. (Feb. 07 @ 12:29:PM est)

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