Simon Evans

YANQING. China (Reuters). Organisers tried to reorganize the Alpine mixed-team parallel race after the Beijing Olympics was postponed by high winds Saturday.

Officials and organizers of the event agreed to host it on Sunday, at 9:00 AM (0100 GMT), despite many teams having to return home.

While it’s likely that the decision will mean that certain teams need to rearrange flights or accommodation reservations, it wasn’t immediately clear whether all of them would be allowed to continue competing.

Officials from the Alpine teams will meet at their pre-race meeting, where the start list and other details will be finalized. Only then can it be determined how many of these 15 teams will still be participating in the new event.

Olympic and International Ski Federation officials wanted to avoid any complications that could arise from an unlikely case where the event is cancelled.

Juan Antonio Samaranch (the head of the International Olympic Committee’s coordination committee for Beijing) told the IOC session these were issues to expect at Winter Games.

“We experienced weather difficulties, but we are here to celebrate Winter Games. “We are still navigating the challenges, but we have winter left and are here to celebrate that,” he stated.

On Sunday, 8 pm, will be the closing ceremony of Beijing Games. Weather forecasts for Sunday are for slightly higher winds later in the day.

At 9 am Saturday, gusts averaged between 24 to 28 metres per second. At that time, gusts will be between 19-22 m/s on Sunday.

Competition at Zhangjiakou’s National Cross-Country Centre was also affected by the weather.

Due to high winds, the men’s 50km cross-country mass race, which is one of sport’s blue events, was delayed by an hour. It was shortened to just 30km.

It wasn’t an easy decision for everyone on the field.

We knew that athletes’ health was important, but it would be difficult …. to move their events one day sooner than other sports. If we are serious about developing our sport, this isn’t the right way to do it. Thomas Maloney Westgaard, a skier from Ireland, tweeted.

Men’s freeski halfpipe final took place but wind kicked up snow, and skiers lost speed on the pipe. Many skiers crashed, as temperatures fell to minus 22 Celsius (minus 7.6 F).

“It was gritty today. Gus Kenworthy, a British skier said that there had been no talk about postponing the race or waiting for it to be completed.

Weather concerns forced the change of date for Friday’s women’s 12.5-km biathlon.