Ski racers charged down a remote Korean mountainside on successive sun-splashed days, carving long, sweeping turns, navigating blind rolls and hurtling through the air off large jumps, far from the familiar slopes of the Alps or the Rockies.
With two years until the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Korean organizers passed their first test, successfully staging World Cup downhill and super-G races on the future Olympic courses.
The Olympic test event races this past weekend went off without a hitch as Kjetil Jansrud of Norway won a downhill on Saturday and Carlo Janka of Switzerland claimed a super-G on Sunday.
“This is more than acceptable for an Olympic downhill venue,” Jansrud said after his victory. “It was running almost too fast because the jumps are very big, which is exciting. It’s a fun race.”
Janka said: “We had a great week here, perfect weather, perfect conditions, and the slope looked really good. Maybe downhill was not so difficult, but the super-G was a really nice course and fun to race.”
The alpine races were the first of 28 test events across all winter sports that the Pyeongchang Olympic organizers will host between now and the games in February 2018.
Just a few weeks ago, this event was in question as construction crews scrambled to finish the gondola at the Jeongseon Alpine Center. Sufficient snow cover had also been a concern.
International Olympic Committee members and International Ski Federation officials expressed doubt in light of the myriad problems facing organizers. But federation race directors confirmed the races on Jan. 20 at their snow control inspection.
Cho Yang-ho, the Pyeongchang 2018 organizing committee president, rallied his team with expertise from European consultants and top engineers from Doppelmayr, an Austrian gondola company. Crews worked almost nonstop through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays to complete the gondola.
“By no means has anything even gone wrong,” said the skier Manny Osborne-Paradis of Canada. “It’s pretty good for a test event.”
The Jeongseon downhill course on Gariwang Mountain, designed by the 1972 Olympic champion Bernhard Russi, runs roughly 1.7 miles. It is shorter than most on the World Cup circuit. Jansrud’s winning time of 1 minute 41.38 seconds was about 11 seconds ahead of the winning time two weeks ago at Kitzbuehel, which has a 2-mile downhill run.
But racers agreed that the track was fun to ski, despite being slower and easier than others.
Subfreezing temperatures and sunny race days ensured ideal snow as skiers made comparisons to the Birds of Prey course conditions in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
“The snow was very responsive, I like the air and it’s a joy to ski,” said the American racer Steven Nyman, who finished third in the downhill Saturday. “Everything here definitely exceeded my expectations.”
Christof Innerhofer of Italy was one of the few dissenters, emphasizing the course’s lack of speed, with racers averaging around 65 mph.
“The last four downhills have every time been tough — you have high adrenaline because you know it can be dangerous,” said Innerhofer, the silver medalist in the downhill at the Sochi Olympics. “Here at the start, it’s like you’re at the beach.”
He warmed up to the course after taking second place in the super-G on Sunday.
Far from home, the racers also enjoyed Korean culture, unfamiliar food and new adventures, bonding over the nearly weeklong Asian trip. Every day, the ski racers made a lengthy one-hour morning bus commute from the Alpensia village, in the Olympic mountain cluster, to the remote Jeongseon downhill venue.
“The whole World Cup is out of their comfort zone a little bit, but the Koreans have been great as far as organization, and everybody has been very friendly,” the veteran American skier Marco Sullivan said.
The Swiss ski federation chief Gian-Franco Kasper congratulated Cho and his team for their commitment and perseverance to make the event happen.
“We have an excellent downhill course according to the athletes and coaches,” Kasper said at a news conference in Jeongseon. “It’s a beauty and a downhill that is really made for the Olympics.”
Kasper added: “There are still a lot of challenges in front of you, Mr. Cho, and now we know that you can deliver.”
Cho, who is also the chief executive of Korean Air, expressed South Korea’s pride in hosting the nation’s first World Cup downhill race, which was broadcast live around the globe.
“Today was a great day, it was a historic day for Korea and the international sports community,” Cho said after Saturday’s downhill. “We put Korea on the map of the international sports world.”
He said: “We had a promise to deliver and we delivered.”
All major Olympic venue construction projects appear to be on schedule, including a high-speed rail line from Seoul to Pyeongchang and the athletes’ and media villages. The Bokwang Snow Park will host World Cup freestyle skiing and snowboard events later this month.
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