After the slopestyle course coping some flak it’s the turn of the halfpipe. Looks like the transition is a little narrow and bumpy and may even favour the skiiers, cue FIS hatred.
It’s looking particularly bad this morning, with Nike team manager tweeting:
Rumour at Halfpipe that qualification is cancelled and it's straight to semis. At either 3.30pm or 6.30pm. Any idea??? #sochi #halfpipe
— Jonathan Weaver (@Jonathan_Weaver) February 11, 2014
The last couple of days have seen plenty of criticisms of pipe:
Well. We got to ride the half pipe today. Interesting.
— Greg Bretz (@gregbretzz) February 8, 2014
The halfpipe issues in Sochi are significant. Practice postponed today. One source called it “unsalvageable.” A lot of work left to be done.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 10, 2014
‘It’s the Olympics. It should be flawless,’ Davis was quoted. ‘What a lame showcase of snowboarding, and what a lame way to treat the athletes.’
The IOC probably didn’t want to pay the right guys to do it… I’m pretty sure what they’re focused on is keeping as much money in their hands as possible. That’s the shame of it all. All these kids, myself included, worked very hard to get here. And then the pipe is just no fun and boring. Rriding a crappy pipe and having to perform in it is the worst.
Swiss Iouri Podladtchikov was much more positiive:
It’s a really great pipe, you can go really, really high in this one but the fact that it’s a little bit more narrow than usual, potentially makes the trick combinations a little bit more rough.
Shaun White:
The first day, the walls were a little over-[vertical], so everybody was doing airs, and then landing like pretty flat. Today, they made the walls better so everybody lands [correctly], but in the flat bottom, where they cut it, it’s like a bump, so everyone is riding along and then hits the bump, and that’s really not very good.
But Olympic Champion Torah Bright had this to say:
‘It’s brutal and all you can do is kinda laugh in there.’
Asked if it was up to standard she answered: ‘No, definitely not. The people who are constructing the pipe aren’t the greatest at their craft and it makes it challenging for us. No one is able to ride their best today.’
‘We’ve had two days of training and you can’t even link a run.’