Bad weather effects the competition programme at Mammoth

Weather conditions for Thursday’s Snowboard halfpipe qualifications in Mammoth Mountain begin with 20-30 mph winds and marginal conditions for pre-qualification training, with some riders giving feedback that they weren’t comfortable during the session. However, the winds died down following practice and a successful ladies’ and men’s Snowboard halfpipe qualification was held.

At noon, with the beginning of Freeski halfpipe qualifications and men’s Snowboard slopestyle qualifications, the winds began to rise once again, though the conditions were manageable for the men through both of the two run qualification phase.

As the ladies’ Snowboard slopestyle training got underway, the winds increased further, and conditions were further diminished by the onset of heavy snow. Many of the riders and coaches came to us at this point expressing concerns about the safety of the course and the feasibility of continuing with the ladies qualification programme. As the wind and snow continued to increase, the jury observed riders struggling with conditions and failing to make landings.

A course hold was implemented for course maintenance. During the course hold a conversation that took place between athletes and coaches at the top of the course - as well as a simple physical observation of the conditions - lead the jury to make the decision to postpone ladies’ Snowboard slopestyle qualifications for the day due to unsafe course and weather conditions. ALL athletes and coaches on hand agreed that this was the correct, safe decision.

During the evening’s team captains meeting (TCM) several possible rescheduling solutions were tabled. Given the restrictions posed by weather forecasts, course preparation times, Mammoth Mountain operation times, and the men’s and ladies Freeski halfpipe finals scheduled for Friday afternoon, it was decided to proceed with men’s Snowboard slopestyle finals in the Friday morning time slot as planned.

However, with the above-mentioned constraints, it was not possible to fit ladies’ Snowboard slopestyle qualifications in before the men’s finals, so the decision was made to move the ladies’ qualifications to a window in the schedule on Sunday morning.

On Friday, the weather continued to negatively effect the programme, with men’s slopestyle finals delayed for several hours, while Freeski halfpipe finals were cancelled for the day and moved to Saturday afternoon, shifting Freeski slopestyle qualifications to Sunday morning and finals for that competition to Sunday afternoon.

Men’s slopestyle finals were finally cancelled for the day early Friday afternoon, and rescheduled for Saturday morning.

With these latest adjustments to the programme, TV resources are completely tied up throughout Saturday and Sunday, meaning that the video feeds absolutely necessary for judging the ladies’ slopestyle qualifications and/or finals would be completely unavailable. With all options for holding a suitable competition exhausted, the unfortunate but necessary decision to cancel the ladies slopestyle event was made by the competition jury and organizers.

To reiterate - the cancellation of the ladies’ Mammoth Mountain Snowboard slopestyle World Cup competition was due to an unfortunate and cascading sequence of weather and resource-related complications that made it impossible to hold a safe and fair competition.