High winds in the weather forecast could move the Olympic men's downhill race from its scheduled Sunday slot.
Race director Markus Waldner told team leaders a Monday lunchtime start is the favored backup plan if needed, sandwiched between two runs of the women's giant slalom.
"This is my message: Be patient and flexible because now the next three days will be tough," Waldner said Friday after a practice run was affected by gusts of wind.
The weather forced a shortened training run to begin 564 feet down the Jeongseon race hill. The downhill start is at 4,495 feet.
Waldner said conditions Friday were "good enough for training but not good enough for a race."
Skiers risk being blown off a safe racing line in strong winds, which could also shut down the only gondola carrying teams and officials up the mountain.
The downhill, the glamour event of Alpine skiing, is positioned as the first skiing event so that it can be conveniently rescheduled.
Champ I-Pod gives up
Olympic halfpipe champion Iouri Podladtchikov won't defend his title because of injuries suffered last month at the Winter X Games.
I-Pod, as he's known, practiced on the Olympic halfpipe Friday but afterward said it would be "totally unreasonable" for him to compete.
A 29-year-old who was born in Russia and competes for Switzerland, he took a nasty fall on his final jump at the X Games on Jan. 28, banging his face against the bottom of the pipe. He was motionless for more than 10 minutes while medics stabilized his neck and strapped him to a stretcher. Doctors diagnosed him with a broken nose and released him from the hospital the next day.
Vonn narrows it down
Minnesota native Lindsey Vonn will enter three races at what she says will be her final Olympics.
Vonn, who missed the 2014 Sochi Games after surgery on her right knee, said Friday she will compete in the downhill, the super-G and the combined. She has decided to sit out the giant slalom, saying that her knee "is just not really in a place to do that."
Etc.
• The U.S. mixed doubles curling team of siblings Becca and Matt Hamilton of McFarland, Wis., fell to 1-4 with a 6-4 loss to China.
• Team USA says 19-year-old American ski jumper Casey Larson has become the 100,000th man to compete at the Olympics. Historian Bill Mallon calculated that Larson reached the milestone by being the 16th starter in Thursday's qualifying.
• The lower house of Russian parliament issued a statement protesting a court's decision barring 45 athletes from the Games just hours before the Opening Ceremony. The lower house, known as the State Duma, released a statement deploring the court's verdict as a reflection of "crude pressure and political struggle in a sports field defying Olympic principles."
• About 16 million people watched NBC's coverage of the first night of the Olympics, down 20 percent from the 20 million who watched the similar first night in Sochi in 2014. NBC said a total of 17.2 million experienced the Olympics if viewers of the NBCSN cable network and digital users are added in, which would make the decrease 14 percent.
• The norovirus outbreak among staff and volunteers appears to be easing. Eleven new cases were diagnosed Friday, according to organizers, bringing the week's total to 139. The outbreak had previously grown by dozens of cases each day.
