Winter Olympics: Arif finishes 45th in giant slalom

The 31-year-old Arif clocked a combined timing of 2 minutes, 47.24 seconds from two races in difficult weather conditions at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre. Arif (1:22.35), making his Winter Olympics debut, ended 53rd out of 54 competitors who could finish Race 1. As many as 33 skiers could not finish the first race while two did not start.

Arif (1:24.89) did better in Race 2, finishing 44th out of 45 skiers who could complete it. Nine skiers failed to finish the second race, which was delayed by about four hours due to bad weather. Arif’s combined timing was 37.89 seconds behind gold medallist Marco Odermatt (2:09.35) of Switzerland. Slovenia’s Zan Kranjec (2:09.54) and Mathieu Faivre (2:10.69) from France clinched silver and bronze respectively.

“I tried to give my best, but the weather was uncertain. We could not see much, but it was good to compete,” Arif was quoted as saying by ‘Olympics.com’.