BEIJING, China — Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt braved snow and poor visibility to take the lead in the first men’s giant slalom downhill at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday.
After completing his descent, Odermatt waved his hand in front of his face to indicate that he had had difficulty seeing the runway clearly. He stopped the clock at 1:02.93.
It is the first time since the start of the Beijing Games that snow has fallen during an alpine ski race.
The Austrian Stefan Brennsteiner is only four hundredths of a second behind Ordermatt while the Frenchman Mathieu Faivre, the world champion, is only eight hundredths behind the leader.
The second descent is scheduled for later on Sunday.
Snow has been falling since Saturday at the Yanqing Alpine Ski Center and the second women’s training run, which was scheduled to take place on Sunday, has been canceled.
The visibility also gave headaches to Italian skier Luca de Aliprendini, who mentioned that “you can’t see anything on the piste”. However, he did not believe the race should have been postponed.
Erik Read took 16th place with a time of 1:04.77 and is the highest ranked Canadian after a run. His compatriot Trevor Philp is in 25th place (1:07.14).
