PYEONGCHANG GAMES
Athletes gear up for cold war at Winter Olympics
Pyeongchang — Even for cold weather warriors hardened by years of winter sports training, the icy chill of South Korea’s frigid February has come as a shock to the system in the lead-up to the Pyeongchang Olympics. Plunging to -20°C at night and rarely breaking above freezing in the day, the temperatures have put Pyeongchang on track to be the coldest Olympics in decades and present athletes with a different set of conditions from the sunshine and slushy snow of Sochi four years ago. The 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, where temperatures dipped to -11°C, are the coldest Olympics on record but Games in Turin, Vancouver and Sochi have all been significantly warmer. Sporting and digital equipment appears no match for the biting cold either, with skis warped to such an extent that coaches are tossing them out like "garbage", while cellphone and TV camera batteries are being rendered lifeless. Austrian alpine skier Marcel Hirscher said athletes were using a different pair of sk...
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