ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Bad weather on Wednesday forced the rescheduling of the first men’s World Cup race of the calendar year, with the event moved to Thursday.
Rain, fog, and strong winds on the Crveni Spust course prevented organizers from starting the night slalom at 3.30 p.m local time (1430 GMT) as scheduled.
The International Ski Federation initially postponed the event by 15 minutes “due to an extra course inspection by the jury,” before calling off the race for the day “due to the extreme weather condition.”
The event opens Thursday at 1 p.m. local time (1200 GMT), followed by the second leg at 4:10 p.m.
It will be only the third men’s slalom of the season, after Clément Noël won in Val d’Isère and Sebastian Foss-Solevåg in Madonna di Campiglio last month. The men’s World Cup calendar includes five slaloms over the next three weeks before the Beijing Olympics open on Feb. 4.
A women’s slalom on the same course went ahead in tough conditions Tuesday, with Slovakian skier Petra Vlhova winning ahead of overall World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin.
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