Heavy snowfalls in many parts of Europe and the world cause races and other events to be postponed or canceled.
One of the major event, the Downhill World Cup in St. Moritz, Switzerland got dumped with over 50 centimeters (20 inches) of fresh powder snow, covering the 2.5km (1.5 mile) long and 60m (197 feet) wide downhill track. To put this amount in prospective, the square footage to be cleaned up equals the one of approximately 28 football fields covered evenly with a half meter snow-coat!
The men were meant to start their Downhill race at 11:45 and until the very last moment it looked like things would be running smoothly but as the first forerunners came down the slope, a tick fog started lingering in the mid section. Bib number one, Brice Roger of France went back and forth from the starting gate multiple times.
Everything was tried by the organizers but they simply could not let this race to happen for safety reasons due to visibility conditions continuously changing. Let’s hope for the competitions to resume on Sunday which would be the last World Cup events before the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
