Injury concerns force changes to Sochi snowboarding course
SOCHI winter Olympics chiefs have been forced to redesign a snowboard course on the eve of the Games after athletes complained it was too dangerous and one medal hopeful broke a collar bone.
Athletes had already voiced fears over the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park slopestyle course before Norway’s Torstein Horgmo suffered a fracture yesterday that ruled him out of the competition.
Finnish 2013 slopestyle world champion Roope Tonteri called it “not really safe”, while Canadian Sebastien Touant said: “It’s like jumping out of a building.” Ireland’s Seamus O’Connor, 16, added that “riders are not happy” at the “pretty dangerous” course.
Assistant snowboard race director Roberto Moresi said changes would be made to the course following the complaints, but denied that it had been to blame for the injury to Horgmo. “He was just trying a really hard trick,” Moresi said.
Snowboarding is among the first events to start at Sochi on Thursday, a day before the official opening ceremony.