Even though the opening ceremony happens tomorrow at 11:00 AM EST, competition starts today. There have been 12 mens’ and womens’ events added to the games since the last Olympics in Vancouver. This has forced the organizers to schedule qualifiers before the official opening – the first time in 30 years.
The Men’s snowboard slopestyle qualifying runs took place at 1am EST this morning – anyone catch it? The Women’s qualifying run takes place at 8am EST (now). There’s been a lot of talk about the slopestyle course this year – controversy even. A number of athletes have already been hurt taking practice runs and Shawn White stepped out of the competition yesterday after spraining his wrist in a training run.
Here are the results of the men’s qualifier. The top 4 go directly to the finals, while the remaining athletes will need to participate in the semi-finals, which will take place on Saturday.
HEAT ONE (Top four advance to final)
1. Staale Sandbech (NOR), 94.50
2. Peetu Piiroinen (FIN), 90.75
3. Sebastien Toutant (CAN), 87.25
4. Jamie Nicholls (GBR), 86.75
5. Chas Guldemond (USA), 86.00
HEAT TWO (Top four advance to final)
1. Max Parrot (CAN), 97.50
2. Roope Tonteri (FIN), 95.75
3. Sven Thorgren (SWE), 94.25
4. Gjermund Bratten (NOR), 91.25
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7. Mark McMorris (CAN), 89.25
8. Sage Kotsenburg (USA), 86.50
9. Ryan Stassel (USA), 81.00
The other skiing related event happening today is the Ladies Mogul Qualification 1 later today. Bode Miller turned in the fastest run in his first Downhill training run (he got Bronze in Vancouver for this event). Check out the course…
The Downhill course at Sochi
Saturday is our first big day to watch events on TV where we’ll get to see the Biathlon, Cross-Country, Freestyle, Ski Jumping, and Snowboarding (just the ski related).
A little closer to home, it’s a bit cooler outside this morning than what we’ve seen the past few days. Winterplace in West Virginia is reporting that they received 5” of snow since our last update and Snowshoe received 2” of natural snow. The West Virginia resorts are all expecting more snow today and then starting back up for a few days on Saturday. Canaan, Snowshoe, Timberline, and Winterplace are all seeing snow now.
Snowing at Canaan
It looks like all of the Southeast ski resorts can expect Mother Nature’s bounty over the weekend. Virginia’s resorts expect snow on Saturday, which is good for me since I’m going to be at Wintergreen on Saturday, and the North Carolina resorts should see the snow on Sunday, when I’m driving back from VA. Going to be an interesting weekend.
As for today, snow in West Virginia like we mentioned and overcast just about everywhere else.
Clouds over Wintergreen
We have a good SkiSoutheast Summit discussion taking place on the message board. The Summit this year is Feb. 28 – Mar. 2nd at Snowshoe. Take a look at the board for details.
Before I leave, there’s one more pic to show you this morning. Wolf is just too pretty to miss.
Wolf Ridge
Take care out there today!
Tim Bahlke
Drop me an email at [email protected] to let me know what you think or with suggestions on what we could be doing better.