I had my alarm set for 8:30 as my race was not till after 1 o'clock. After the alarm went off I was just lying there and dosing for a bit. Suddenly the door opens and in comes Colette, who is supposed to be up at the venue by now. She says, "Well, you might as well stay in bed. The races are cancelled." I sit up in shock, all possible reasons for this running through my mind. "A tower blew down and the gondola is not running," she continues. I say "Oh my God!" and jump out of bed.
We don't actually know if a tower really blew down but it's apparently extremely windy up at "Laura," the cross-country venue, and the gondola is not running for safety reasons. Apparently, there are also some trees down at the site and a lot of the tents have blown away. The official press release is on the IPC website. It is currently raining here and up at the site and they're calling for snow overnight - 50 cm of it! They are hoping to run the sprints tomorrow afternoon as planned. I really hope they can!
In the meantime, there isn't much for us to do here. We are supposed to stay at Rosa Khutor (our little hotel strip) and the poor guys staying up top have to stay in their cabins or the restaurant. At least, Colette and I were able to go for a good 50-minute jog outside before the rain began. A decision on tomorrow will be made by 8 o'clock tonight so all we can do now is rest up and wait.
This is the view from our balcony right now:
I will post another update when I know more.
Good afternoon from rainy Sochi.
OH NO! That's terrible. I hope that everything works out and races go ahead tomorrow.
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