Athletes Training on 2018 Olympic Downhill Run
Athletes Training on 2018 Olympic Downhill Run
Published : 03-Feb-2016 10:31
The world's best downhill racers (at least, those who are not currently injured from races earlier this season) are currently training at the newly completed venue for the 2018 South Korean winter Olympics.
"I guess you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And PyeongChang just aced it. This will be a fantastic venue," Norwegian racer Kjetil Jansrud (pictured above), commented this morning, adding, with a reference to the lack of natural snow,
"Right now this place has as much snow as the last European venue we visited, and frankly with minus 15 degrees it's not a question of climate."
World Cup races are due to be staged at the venue over the coming few days, exactly two years before the Olympics are staged there.
The construction of the venue has been controversial as it involved creating an all new piste and resort base in an area that was formerly protected natural park land. The decision led to a petition from environmentalists signed by over 1.3 million people.
South Korea did not have an existing piste with a vertical that met the normal requirements of an Olympic Downhill, but protestors argued that either the closest existing run might be extended to meet the minimum requirements or that the IOC might relax the requirement, but neither option appears to have been acceptable.
Construction of lifts and run were only just completed in time, late last month, after workers worked around the clock and through holiday periods to reach their target.
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