Sochi, Russia – After wreaking havoc on parallel giant slalom (PGS) and halfpipe competitions this week, extremely warm temperatures have forced FIS to cancel the season’s third FIS Snowboard World Cup parallel slalom which was scheduled in the “Extreme Park” 2014 Sochi Olympic venue at Rosa Khutor today.

Although local organizers were able to run the Olympic parallel giant slalom and halfpipe test events for Sochi 2014 despite the tough weather conditions, today’s springlike temperatures made a proper World Cup slope preparation impossible.

Despite repeated postponements of the qualification and the use of chemicals and water, the women’s time trials which finally kicked off at noon local time were abandoned after ten riders.

“There is always a balance of risk if you run two events on two consecutive days on the same slope because you don’t have that much preparation time,” said FIS Snowboard Race Director Uwe Beier. “But we have proven in the past that this is definitely possible. Here in Sochi, we faced some very warm temperatures right from the beginning which in the end made it impossible to provide a proper World Cup slope.”

With tight time frame for this week’s events in Sochi, there is no space to reschedule the race at Rosa Khutor. FIS officials have yet to determine if the parallel slalom can be organized later in the season.

Time trials for Snowboard Cross are still on schedule for Saturday in the “Extreme Park”.