Fog causes chaos, delay at Olympic Alpine skiing

The fog was so dense, the bright green Olympic rings beside the Alpine skiing course were almost impossible to see. Forget about trying to make out a gate when it's a few meters away while you're racing toward it.

Organizers were left with no choice Wednesday but to postpone the second run of the women's giant slalom until Thursday.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," said Germany's Maria Riesch, who won the super-combined gold medal last week and was seventh after Wednesday's opening leg. "The fog was really tight ... you couldn't see."

The first leg was held in driving snow and low visibility, and organizers attempted to get the second run in by shortening the course and delaying the start several times. But the fog only got worse, slowly creeping down the mountain.

TV cameras had trouble picking up skiers through the haze. The giant videoboard that allows fans to watch the skiers coming down the course seemed to go blank for several seconds at a time, showing an all-white screen until suddenly a racer would emerge.

"You can not really see the snow on the ground," said Tanja Poutiainen of Finland, who was 13th, more than a second behind first-run leader Elisabeth Goergl of Austria.

Weather-related postponements and cancellations are usually reserved for the speed events, and technical specialists were thrown off-guard. World Cup giant slaloms and slaloms often are run even in a blizzard.

"I'm not really used to having things like this," Poutiainen said.

The forecast is for snow through Wednesday night and into Thursday, along with more fog.

"It's more or less a little like today," women's race director Atle Skaardal said. "Probably and hopefully less fog, and maybe a little less precipitation."

Skaardal said that only the first 30 skiers need to start the second run for the race results to be official.

Goergl finished the opening leg in 1 minute, 15.12 seconds. Taina Barioz of France was only 0.02 behind, and Kathrin Zettel of Austria was third, 0.16 back.

"Of course, you want to finish it and do your job," Goergl said. "Now I have to wait until tomorrow."

American Lindsey Vonn crashed and broke the little finger on her right hand.

Skaardal indicated there was never any consideration of throwing out the first-run results and restarting the race from scratch on another day.

"I don't see why we should cancel the first run," he said. "It was a fair and good first run. Why should we take it away?"

Riesch agreed.

"It's something special," she said. "I think it's better than totally canceling it and doing it from the beginning again."

It won't be the first time an Olympic race is held over two days.

At the 2006 Turin Games, the slalom runs of the women's combined were held one day and the downhill leg the next.

After this race, two more events remain on the Alpine schedule _ the women's slalom Friday and the men's slalom Saturday.

Vonn lost control around a right turn in the middle section of the course, got twisted around, landed hard on her left hip and crashed backward into the safety netting.

Defending champion Julia Mancuso had her first run down interrupted due to Vonn's crash, then was brought back up for another try and placed 18th, 1.30 seconds behind Goergl.

Goergl took bronze behind Vonn and Mancuso in the downhill that opened the women's Alpine program here. She has won three World Cup races in her career _ two in giant slalom _ but the last nearly two years ago.

Barioz's best finish in any discipline was third in a giant slalom in Lienz, Austria, in December.

Zettel opened her games by finishing fourth in the super-combined. A technical specialist, she is second in this season's World Cup giant slalom standings, having won the GS in Maribor, Slovenia, last month.

Another Austrian, Eva-Maria Brem, was fourth, and Tina Maze of Slovenia _ who took silver in super-G _ was fifth.

Swedish great Anja Paerson was 12th, 0.89 out.

"The visibility was pretty bad. We could see about three gates so you really had to trust yourself," Paerson said. "I think I have a good chance of taking a medal here, but then I really have to charge in the second run."