Winter Olympics are stopped by SNOW: Blizzards cause bedlam in Italy as cars crash, events are cancelled… and even the indoor competitions are delayed!
Sophie Jackson’s must-win curling match against the Italians was delayed on Thursday after a huge snowstorm caused traffic chaos at the Winter Olympics.
Team GB’s struggling women’s rink were scheduled to start at 2.05pm local time but were forced into a 25-minute delay when both teams faced difficulties getting to the venue in Cortina.
The blizzard has seen around three feet of snowfall since Wednesday night, causing bedlam on the roads, the issue has affected all Games-related vehicles.
An International Olympic Committee spokesperson said: ‘Snow is an occupational hazard for winter sports. The federations are used to dealing with delays or bad weather. It is something we have to work with.’
Former Team GB skier Chemmy Alcott said: ‘I have been here every year for the last 25 years and we rarely get conditions like this.
Heavy snowfall has interrupted the Winter Olympics and caused chaos on the roads
Firefighters attend the scene of a crash which saw a DHL delivery van left crumpled
A volunteer is seen blowing away snow at the shooting range in Anterselva, Italy
There was a huge effort to clear snow but events had to be cancelled and delayed widely
The Olympic rings show the level of snowfall on Thursday in Cortina
‘We rarely get snow coming in and sticking on the roads. Even the locals are struggling to drive, so it’s carnage out there.’
Other events including the men’s freeski halfpipe, men’s aerials and ski cross training have all had to be postponed.
A spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee, said: ‘Snow is an occupational hazard for winter sports.
‘The federations are used to dealing with delays or bad weather. It is something we have to work with.’
Jackson’s Brits, currently in sixth place, need to beat Italy to stand any chance of progressing to the semi-finals, while also relying on results elsewhere to go their way.
Bruce Mouat’s rink have been told they will also face a 25-minute delay ahead of their semi-final against Switzerland on Thursday evening.
But GB still miss out on a medal!
The one that got away? It’s a question that applied as much to Team GB as it did Emily Harrop after the Frenchwoman took a silver medal in the ski mountaineering sprint in Bormio on Thursday.
There will have been a modicum of regret for those in the GB hierarchy that the three-time world champion was competing in other colours here, considering her parents are English and she was the British downhill champion in Alpine skiing in 2015.
But having declared for France, the nation of her birth, a medal has been logged elsewhere on the overall table.
For Harrop, 28, the frustration is that gold was in her possession for the first half of a frantic, new format in which racers scale a 610metre ascent before skiing back down again.
Emily Harrop took silver in the ski mountaineering sprint – with regret for Great Britain
On the uphill portion, she led until the first transition, but a slow manoeuvre in removing her skins – the covering that prevents the athlete from slipping backwards on the climb – allowed Marianne Fatton to pass her.
Fatton crossed in two minutes and 59.77 seconds, 2.38sec clear of Harrop.
‘My dad wanted me to go with the Brits,’ said prior to competition.
‘I’ve grown up in France and all my coaches, all my training partners, it’s all been through the French system. It was hard for me to turn my back on all that.’
She added: ‘In skiMo, when I started at least, the British team didn’t really exist and they weren’t actually competing on the World Cup, so the question [of allegiance] didn’t really get asked.’
