BAD weather was blamed for Asa Miller's failure at least a decent placing in the men’s giant slalom in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Yanqing, China.
Miller was one of the 33 competitors who failed to finish, crashing out 15 seconds into his first of two runs. He was aiming to improve on his 70th place effort during the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Snow came down during the competition and conditions were so bad that organizers were forced to postpone the women’s freeski slopestyle qualification and women’s downhill training run due to almost zero visibility conditions.
The Associated Press reported that it was the first time snow fell in the alpine skiing event in the history of the Olympics.
How Swede it is
Marco Odermatt of Sweden eventually captured the gold after topping the first run.
“Doesn’t snow for two weeks then race day rolls around,” went Miller’s caption on his IG story while showing the snowy conditions in the venue.
“It’s certainly a bummer and as the course got skied out,” Miller’s American coach Will Gregorak added. “It’s not good on the upper pitch. I feel bum for him but he had an excellent warm-up this morning.”
Gregorak said Miller was frustrated as he came out to perform respectably in his second Winter Olympics.
“Asa didn’t want to ski just to finish, he wants to ski, lay down and run,” Gregorak said. “The hard part about this hill is that it comes out as you ride and it gets very slick.”
“I’m still proud of him, he still put out the work,” he added. “Like I said, he didn’t go out [only] to finish. That’s the nature of the sport, that’s what could happen.”
Sports officials are now looking forward to Wednesday where Miller is slated to compete in his final event, the men’s slalom.
“It’s part of alpine skiing,” said Philippine Olympic Committee president Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino in a statement from Tagaytay City. “But he still has the slalom on Wednesday.”
Two Southeast Asian entrants made it to the final in Thailand’s Nicola Zanon (44th) and Timor Leste’s Yohan Goncalves Goutt (52nd).
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