The Olympic women’s Alpine skiing giant slalom will be decided on Thursday after mountain fog forced Wednesday’s second run to be postponed.
After repeated delays due to poor visibility, and skiers huddled for two hours at a lowered start point in the hope that conditions might improve, officials gave up on attempts to complete the race in one day.
“The plan now is to do the second run tomorrow,” race director Atle Skaardal told reporters, with the new start set for 0930 local from the regular hut.
“We knew it would be a very difficult day today. We know also it will be a similar difficult day tomorrow,” said Skaardal.
Asked what would happen if the run could not be held on Thursday, the Norwegian said it would have to be discussed within the Games’ emergency group. However, he said the race could not be valid without a second run.
Slaloms are scheduled for Friday and Saturday, although the men use a different piste. Skaardal said he was flying home on Sunday.
“We were quite lucky and were able to do a good and fair first run and due to the weather change were not able to pull off a second run,” he continued.
“The jury were unanimous in the decision and nobody felt it would be fair to cancel the first run.”

CLOSE BEHIND
Elisabeth Goergl, who could become the first Austrian to win Olympic gold in the discipline since it was introduced in 1952, led France’s Taina Barioz by 0.02 seconds after the first run, with two more Austrians close behind.
“I think it is a fair decision from the jury to do it tomorrow because we don’t want a lottery at such an important race like this,” Goergl told Reuters. “Let’s hope that we have fair conditions tomorrow and a good race.”
French coach Yves Dimier said the decision was also good news for Barioz.
The regulations state only that “whenever possible” both runs should be held on the same day.
The decision to proceed with only the second run, rather than a completely new race, ended any hopes of American Lindsey Vonn being able to return after crashing out of the first leg.

source: sports.yahoo.com/olympics