Switzerland's Simon Ammann celebrates after his first jump in the men's Ski Jumping final at the Whistler Olympic Park during the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Simon Ammann won gold in the event. (AFP/Don Emmert)
Posted on 02/13/2010 5:05:12 PM PST by NormsRevenge
VANCOUVER (AFP) – The Winter Olympics suffered a miserable start on Saturday when the men's skiing downhill was postponed and protests turned violent in Vancouver, but the luge went ahead despite the death of a Georgian slider.
A day after a dazzling ceremony opened the Games, the first gold medal was claimed by Switzerland's Simon Ammann, who won the normal hill ski jump ahead of Poland's Adam Malysz and Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer.
Ammann wants Miami ice ... and more girls
Dutchman Sven Kramer took out the 5,000 metre men's speedskating gold, finally capturing a title that had eluded him four years ago at Turin.
Kramer won in 6mins 14.60sec, setting an Olympic record to defeat South Korean Lee Seung-Hoon by 2.35sec with Russian Ivan Skobrev third.
Tearful Kramer captures 5,000m speedskating gold
Meanwhile, Slovakia's Anastasiya Kuzmina was a shock winner in the women's 7.5 km biathlon sprint, relegating favourite Magdalena Neuner of Germany into second and Frenchwoman Marie Dorin into third.
While those events took place, the unpredictable weather that has haunted organisers all week forced the blue-riband downhill, a medal event, to be put back until Monday.
The International Ski Federation said overnight snow and rain in the Whistler mountains followed by mild temperatures meant that skiing on the piste was out of the question.
"The piste has been badly affected these last two days by the mild temperatures and the himud conditions with snow and rain," said the FIS race director Gunter Hujara.
The women's super-combined, which had been scheduled for Sunday, was postponed until Thursday, with practice runs not possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Switzerland's Simon Ammann celebrates after his first jump in the men's Ski Jumping final at the Whistler Olympic Park during the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Simon Ammann won gold in the event. (AFP/Don Emmert)
The piste?
Al Gore will re-emerge, thanks to some unseasonably warm weather in Canada.
Bookmark this post.
I’m just waiting for the liberals to talk about global warming because of their warm winter there in Vancouver. Of course the same liberals will ignore the severe winter in the eastern US when they bemoan the lack of snow at the winter olympics.
The thing you ski down.
Vancouver has GOT to be one of the only places in North America experiencing this warmer-than-average weather.
Ma Nature has a warped sense of humor. ;-)
How many different versions of skiing downhill do they need?
Just plant some flags and whoever gets there first wins.
Winter Olympics are so boring in general.
OTOH so are most events in the Summer Olympics.
He's just piste off.
LOL
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piste
Main Entry: piste
..
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from Old Italian pista, from pistare to trample down, pound — more at piston
Date: circa 1741
: trail; especially : a downhill ski trail
wait till the drug test results start showing up.
Isn’t one female hockey player already out for failing testing?
Poor Nancy Kerrigan.
We’re having lovely weather here in Oregon too. It was supposed to be nearly 60 degrees today.
We hit 64 or so today here in san jose,, next few days should be that or warmer ..
and Yes, Mother Nature throws a mean curveball.. I hope spring training camp doesn’t get snowed out.. again..
I feel kind of sorry for Canada. They are doing their best to make a good show.
Very gracious of you, but you can be sure those bastards wouldn’t feel sorry for us if we were the ones having the problems.
The arctic cold air just hasn’t been able to keep it a few degrees cooler there at low levels, tho the mountains have snow on them above certain levels..
as to the MSM, just think where we would be without them? ;-)
It’s the luck of the draw. it happens
I bet they were piste off
There’s more than one Canadian here that would.
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