13th
Snow fell widely in the three divisions of the Beijing Winter Olympics
Gu Ailing participated
Freestyle skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics
Women's Steeplechase Qualifiers
Postponed to the 14th
A ski race
After the snow, it was affected
Why?
According to the International Snow Federation
Rules of Competition for International Snowboarding and Freestyle Skiing
If the site is safe or fair
Not suitable for continuing the game
Then the Referee Committee
The right to cancel or suspend the contest
Or decide whether the event will be postponed
So what situation will affect
What about safety and fairness?
These cases are listed in the rules
And the direct postponement of the Gu Ailing competition
Is poor visibility
But
Rules
There is no separate list of "visibility" items
Even a closer reading of the rules will reveal
In addition to setting a lower limit for temperature
It is for situations where there is a need to postpone or cancel the game
It's too general
In fact
This is true not only of the rules of snowboarding and freestyle skiing
Another "hardest hit area" affected by the weather
Alpine skiing
The same is true
The editor looked up its rules
It lists weather conditions that are not suitable for the race
Only a few words
Translate it as that
The snow is not thick enough
The snow is not in a good condition
Fog doesn't work
Excessive snowfall, rainfall, storms do not work
but
What is "overdose"
How big is the fog "big"
The snow surface situation is not good and "not good"
The editor went to find the people of the International Snow Federation with the question mark
They only gave one sentence
Sometimes look at the rules
Sometimes by experience
Skiing is an outdoor sport
The rules are dead
How can we exhaust the arrangement and combination of the various elements of nature?
The referees are experienced veterans
They know what kind of weather is right for the players
Take freestyle skiing, for example
It is greatly affected by the site, climate and equipment
Smoothness of the snow surface when sliding
Wind direction and wind speed when sliding
Both affect the take-off speed and altitude
Extreme weather such as heavy snow can affect athlete visibility
This competition is postponed
It is mainly from the perspective of athlete safety
Gu Ailing in the Women's Steeplechase Competition at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics ↓
Actually Gu Ailing's game
Not the first game postponed at the Beijing Winter Olympics
Alpine skiing men's downhill on the 6th
Also postponed because of strong gusts
then
The weather forecast has given a numerical value for the wind speed
The numbers look good and seem to be able to race
But the track is at different altitudes
Five referees were distributed
They were standing there
Hair
Blown out the report said
This wind, no
Experience comes in handy
On the 13th, the staff braved the snow to level the alpine skiing competition track
And why can't such a strong gust of wind work?
On the one hand, strong gusts can make the game unsafe
On the other hand, because it will make the game unfair
Gusts of wind
It's just that one moment there is, and one moment there isn't
If you have no wind when you are sliding
There was a sudden strong wind when I was sliding
Isn't that unfair to me?
So knock on the blackboard:
I want to explain why the snow race was postponed
But I can't tell what the specific impact of the weather is
Then throw out two keywords
safe!
fair!
Isn't it a ski race?
Why can't the next snow be better than that?
Say it without disbelief
Snow projects are very afraid of snow
One is because
Visibility will deteriorate after snowfall
It can also be windy
The second reason
Natural snowfall is for standardized competitions
No way
Take alpine skiing, for example
The competition snow requirement is icy snow
It's characterised
Firm and hard
In the words of Kong Fanying, a female Chinese alpine skier
That snow, old light!
She also warmly invited the editor
Try it out on top?
Listen
Skiing does not mean skiing
They all said "out of the way" instead
You can see how hard the snow is
This is Kong Fanying in the slip, ah no, the game ↓
Why is the snow hard?
You must already know
Because to be fair! Be safe!
Just think about it
If the game slides the legendary "powder snow"
Is not a person after slipping past
Will it leave a ditch?
A lot of people slid over after that
That snow is already thin?
This is for the players who start later
Is it fair? Is it safe?
Tournament organizers hope
The first player to set off
and the last player to set off
The snow quality of the skidded snow should be as similar as possible
Harder, firmer snow
After being scraped by a snowboard blade
The traces left are relatively few and shallow
It is the best choice for most snow sports
Natural snow
It does not meet such requirements
Small snowflakes of natural snow
It is braced
Like this ↓
Naturally, it is not tight enough and not hard enough
Or the density is not high enough
Let's look at the picture
On the left is low-density snow
On the right is high-density snow
The morphological difference between the two
You'll know it at a glance
Officially in the game
The density requirements for snow vary from project to project
Some sites need to inject water to increase density for snowmaking
Some venues do not use it
Some projects require more water injection
Some projects have less water injection
……
At last
I wish all the players peace in the game
Also the staff who clear the floating snow on the track after the snow falls
It's hard work
Track cleanup work for many projects
It can only rely on human resources
Most of the staff are professional athletes or coaches
They stomp on snowboards and use horizontal slides to blow snow
Even carrying a shovel up the mountain to shovel snow
It's not easy
Hats off to every Winter Olympics!
Reporters: Wang Qinou and Lu Xingji
Photo: Xu Chang, Xiao Yijiu, Chen Yichen, Wang Jianwei, Chen Bin, Lian Zhen, Zhang Chenlin
Some of the images are from the Swiss Snow and Avalanche Research Institute's Alpine SkiIng Competitive Pistes Snowmaking and Maintenance Guide
Editors: Xiao Shiyao, Huang Xuguo