Riders wipe out in windy women's snowboard slopestyle conditions at Winter Olympics

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The decision to hold the women’s snowboard slopestyle in windy conditions Monday at the Phoenix Snow Park looks highly questionable halfway through the two-run final.

Only five of the 25 riders actually completed their first runs, with a number of wipeouts and three bailing on jumps.

One American, Jamie Anderson, was among those five, taking a more conservative route on the third jump after completing an inverted trick on her second. She leads the field with an 83.00 score going into the second run, with Norway’s Silje Norendal in second at 73.91 and American Jessika Jenson in third with a score of 72.26.

The event was already delayed a day and cut down from its typical format, which is a two-run qualifier that narrows the field to 12 for a three-run final. Instead, the International Ski Federation decided to hold a full field, two-run final on Monday morning. The start was delayed further by an hour and 15 minutes due to the wind.

“The decision was made according to a contingency plan put in place during the team captains meeting on Saturday (Feb. 10), as agreed upon by the jury and the team representatives,” the FIS said in a statement.

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2018 Winter Olympics:Medal standings

But the urgency to get the event completed might have overtaken common sense, as it was clear the riders were struggling with similar blustery conditions that caused the women’s alpine skiing event to be postponed on Monday.

Though there’s still one more run for these riders to post a winning run, there’s no doubt the decision to hold the event will come under fire as one contender after another struggled to post a score.

Canada’s Spencer O’Brien got up limping after falling on her first jump, Finalnd’s Enni Rukajarvi made it cleanly to the third jump before crashing. Austria’s Anna Gasser, considered a potential gold medalist, didn’t go conservative, attempting at double under flip off the first jump but couldn’t land it cleanly and thus bailed out of the rest of her run. USA’s Julia Marino fell, but will still have a chance to complete her second run and post a good enough score to medal.