Sestriere, Italy – Heavy snow and fog canceled this weekend’s World Cup women’s downhill and super combined ski races in Sestriere.nIt was a rough weather weekend in Sestriere. After nearly four hours of fog and snow delays on Saturday organizers postponed the women’s downhill until Sunday at 6 a.m., pushing Sunday’s originally scheduled super combined back to Monday. Fog also canceled the final downhill training run on Friday.

With the weather conditions persisting Sunday morning, organizers then opted to cancel the World Cup weekend altogether. This is the second women’s World Cup weekend to be lost entirely after warm temperatures scrapped a giant slalom and slalom in Maribor, Slovenia earlier this month. The races will not be made up before the Feb. 8-20 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships set for Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

“On some parts of the course, it’s 20 or 30 centimeters, others it’s five or 10. It is a lot of snow and it is still snowing heavily. Visibility is zero. This weather is going to continue through Monday. There is just no chance,” explained FIS Women’s World Cup Race Director, Atle Skaardal. “For sure we’re going to miss some races this season. We have to prioritize the next organizers and the next races and be very careful with an already packed race calendar for the rest of the season.”

“It’s a pretty packed calendar and it’s tough to make up speed races, but weather is a big part of our sport,” added U.S. Ski Team Women’s Head Coach, Alex Hoedlmoser. It’s nothing new to us. We’ll just pack up and head to Kaprun to get ready for the next set of races. It’s completely dumping, but luckily we have good cars.”