Alpine skiing World Cup season opener cancelled due to bad weather

Associated PressOct 22, 2022, 9:08 AM EDT

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Soelden, Austria — Rain and snowfall wiped out the first women’s race of the Alpine skiing World Cup season Saturday and made the men’s event for the next day doubtful.

Wet snow on the Austrian glacier affected the visibility on the softened course and made a safe race impossible.

Organizers initially delayed the planned start time of 10 a.m. by one hour but decided to call off the race soon after as conditions didn’t improve.

“This was the worst-case scenario — but this happened exactly,” FIS women’s race director Peter Gerdol said. “We had a couple of hours of rain tonight and then this wet snow around five or six o’clock this morning, so the surface was actually too soft to guarantee a safe race.”

The giant slalom will likely be rescheduled at another venue, to be confirmed “in a few days,” according to Gerdol.

Weather conditions were expected to improve in the afternoon, allowing organizers to start preparing the course for the men’s race on Sunday.

Chief of race Rainer Gstrein said they might need to use water and salt to make the weakened course suitable again for a World Cup race.

“It’s going to be a major effort,” Gstrein told Austrian broadcaster ORF.

It is the first time since 2006 that the women’s race of the traditional season-opening weekend in Austria was canceled. The men’s race was most recently called off in 2017 and 2018.

“Well, we’re trying. We’re all ready to go, everything’s been packed up,” Mikaela Shiffrin said in a video posted on her Twitter account.

“But the race has been canceled because, unfortunately, it’s really, really, really wet outside. But air smells fresh and that’s nice but we won’t be racing today.”

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/ZcUmPg7Qry

— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) October 22, 2022

Shiffrin won the traditional season opener on the Rettenbach glacier last year and the American went on to win the overall World Cup title for a fourth time.

In a similar scenario, Marco Odermatt triumphed in the men’s race and the Swiss skier became overall champion for the first time last season.

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2023 World Junior Gymnastics Championships live stream schedule

By OlympicTalkMar 30, 2023, 8:08 PM EDT

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The world junior gymnastics championships individual finals stream live on the International Gymnastics Federation YouTube channel from Friday through Sunday.

Already this week, Japan swept the men’s and women’s team titles in Antalya, Turkey. The U.S. women took silver.

The U.S. women in Friday’s all-around final are Izzy Stassi (qualified fourth) and Jayla Hang (qualified 22nd). The U.S. men in Friday’s all-around final are Kai Uemura (qualified 11th) and David Shamah (qualified 14th).

Americans also advanced to four of this weekend’s apparatus finals: women’s vault (Stassi, Hang), uneven bars (Hezly Rivera) and floor exercise (Rivera, Hang) and men’s still rings (Uemura).

Gymnastics added a biennial junior worlds starting in 2019. The 2021 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Women ages 14 or 15 and men ages 15 through 18 compete.

The U.S. team in 2019 included future senior world team members Skye Blakely, Kayla DiCello and Konnor McClain.

2023 World Junior Gymnastics Championships Live Stream Schedule

Day	Competition	Time (ET)	Platform
Friday	Men’s All-Around	7:30 a.m.	FIG YouTube \| LIVE STREAM LINK
	Women’s All-Around	12 p.m.	FIG YouTube \| LIVE STREAM LINK
Saturday	Apparatus Finals	7 a.m.	FIG YouTube \| LIVE STREAM LINK
Sunday	Apparatus Finals	7 a.m.	FIG YouTube \| LIVE STREAM LINK

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Lashinda Demus upgraded to 2012 Olympic gold medalist by IOC

By OlympicTalkMar 30, 2023, 12:08 PM EDT

American Lashinda Demus has been upgraded from silver to gold in the 2012 Olympic 400m hurdles by the IOC, five months after the original gold medalist was retroactively disqualified for doping.

The IOC announcement came three months after World Athletics changed its results, also moving Demus to gold, Czech Zuzana Hejnová from bronze to silver and Jamaican Kaliese Spencer from fourth to bronze.

Demus can choose how to receive her medal, including at the next Olympics, at a USOPC function, another international track and field event or a private function.

Russian Natalya Antyukh, the original winner by seven hundredths of a second over Demus, had her results from July 2012 through June 2013 retroactively stripped by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency last October. Antyukh, who last competed in 2016, was already serving a four-year doping ban and did not appeal the stripping of her Olympic title.

“Hearing the news didn’t impact my mood or feelings being that it has been 10 years since it has happened,” Demus, who last competed in 2016, wrote in an email after the October announcement. “I have mixed emotions about it all. I do believe that if, in fact, there was doping involved with anyone in the Olympics that they should be stripped of their medal. With everything being said it looks like this is the case for my race. I’m not afraid to say that I then deserve the official title, medal, recognition, and missed compensation that goes along with it all. I wouldn’t want any athlete to go through this same situation and I hope that keeping athletes honest in our sport stays at the forefront for those who sacrifice a good part of their life to be great at it.”

In the 2012 Olympic 400m hurdles final, Antyukh, then 31, lowered her personal best by 22 hundredths of a second to hold off Demus, the reigning world champion.

“Of course, I wanted the gold medal; I will not stop until I get the gold medal,” Demus told Lewis Johnson on NBC after the race, voicing a desire to return for the 2016 Olympics (which she did not do after a series of injuries).

At the time, Demus was the third-fastest woman in history in the event and the American record holder with a personal best of 52.47 seconds.

Demus, a 2004 Olympian, missed the 2008 Beijing Games by one spot at Olympic Trials after giving birth to twins in June 2007. She also won world championships medals in 2005 (silver), 2009 (silver), 2011 (gold) and 2013 (bronze).

Demus becomes, retroactively, the first U.S. woman to win an Olympic 400m hurdles title. Dalilah Muhammad won the event in 2016 and Sydney McLaughlin two years ago in Tokyo.

Russia originally won eight track and field gold medals at the 2012 Olympics. Due to doping, that number is now down to one — high jumper Anna Chicherova, who was stripped of her 2008 Olympic bronze medal for doping.

The span between Antyukh winning an Olympic medal and it being stripped for doping may be the longest for the Summer Games since Lance Armstrong was stripped of his 2000 Olympic cycling time trial bronze medal more than 12 years after the race. That medal was not reallocated. Spain’s Abraham Olano, the fourth-place finisher, was not upgraded and later had his name come up in a French senate report of cyclists who doped in the 1998 Tour de France.

Also Thursday, the IOC announced that it reallocated medals in the 2012 Olympic women’s 20km race walk after Russian gold and silver medalists Elena Lashmanova and Olga Kaniskina were previously given retroactive doping bans.

The new podium is all China, giving that nation its first Olympic track and field medals sweep, according to Olympedia.org. It also swept medals in badminton in table tennis events.

Shenjie Qieyang, who originally finished third, has been upgraded to gold. Liu Hong went from fourth to silver. Lu Xiuzhi went from fifth to bronze.

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