Winter Olympics: Men's downhill event rescheduled

The local organising committee and the International Ski Federation (FIS) rescheduled the men's downhill event at the PyeongChang Olympics on Sunday due to a strong wind.

The men's downhill event was originally set to start at 11 a.m. on Sunday at Jeongseon Alpine Centre in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province, but the organisers postponed the event because of an unfavourable forecast.

The FIS said the wind, gusting at up to 72 kms per hour, was expected to continue all day, reports Yonhap news agency.

The FIS jury and the local organisers later decided that the event will be moved to 11 a.m. on Thursday, while the men's super-G will be pushed to 11 a.m. on Friday.

They added that the alpine combined downhill training scheduled for Monday had also been cancelled.

Sung Baik-you, the spokesman for the PyeongChang 2018 organising committee, said the decision was made for the safety of the athletes.

"A gale warning was issued and in some areas we heard that the temperature could go down as low as negative 25 Celsius, so the FIS and the organising committee had a meeting 6 a.m. today (Sunday) and decided to postpone the men's alpine downhill event," he said.

"For those who came a long way to see the event, we'll explain the situation and help them to see other events at the Winter Games."

--IANS

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