The most fretted-over patch of hill in the Pacific time zone is hosting actual Olympic competition.
The women’s freestyle moguls event is underway at Cypress Mountain, and no, there aren’t any brown patches for the skiers to avoid as they bounce down the hill. They’re pretty much everywhere else around the hill. It took 20 minutes to see any patch of white from the time my shuttle bus reached the mountain’s base. But the seemingly Sysiphean task of choppering powder in to battle the warm, wet conditions appears to have paid off, at least early.
That’s not to say those conditions are ideal. The weather is as Vancouver-ish as anywhere else around here: temps are in the mid-40s with rain.
It didn’t stop American Hannah Kearney from a successful first run during qualifying. Asked about the conditions, she replied, “The moisture in the snow is making it a little slick, so it’s faster than it was at training.”
(Speaking of Kearney, the WSJ’s Reed Albergotti did a great segment with her for his “The Olympics: How Hard Can it Be?” series where she gave him a crash course in her sport.)
Despite the general unpleasantness of the weather, the house was already crowded at the start of qualifying with loooooong lines for hot chocolate and anything else to keep the cold away.
Those moguls are already looking kind of mushy. It’ll be interesting to see how battered they are by the end of the competition.
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