Olympic skiing and snowboard qualifying postponed due to wind, snow – Orange County Register

By PAT GRAHAM

ZHANGJIAKOU, China – Freestyle skier Eileen Gu’s second gold medal quest at the Beijing Olympics took a slight detour as high winds and snow postponed the women’s qualifiers snow on Sunday.

Qualifiers will now take place on Monday and the final the next day. The switch avoids placing the gold medal round directly with the Super Bowl, which is being televised on the Olympic network, NBC.

Additionally, the men’s qualifying round has moved from Monday to Tuesday. That final will now be Wednesday.

Gu, who was born and raised in the United States, has become an even bigger star in China, the country where her mother is from and the 18-year-old girl from San Francisco has chosen to represent. Gu won the gold last Tuesday.

Already at the top of the hill, Gu was straining and getting ready for some warm-up runs in the hot sun as qualifying was postponed. The snow was blowing sideways and the flags below the airfield were flying in all directions. Visibility is also low, making landing jumping off big kickers along the track a dangerous proposition.