The Games' snow woes

Winter Games officials have given up on any help from Mother Nature and will now be trucking in snow for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events at Cypress Mountain, on Vancouver's North Shore.The forecast for the week ahead suggests that there will be no new snow for the mountain, nor will it get cold enough to allow them to make any, the organizers said Wednesday after their final board meeting before next month's Games."We are planning that we will not have snow," said Cathy Priestner Allinger, executive vice-president of sport and Games operations for the organizing committee, known as VANOC.Contingency plans are now being rolled out which include using straw and wood to take the place of snow to build the base for the courses.But Priestner Allinger says they believe there is enough snow elsewhere on the mountain and they will use trucks, snow cats and if necessary helicopters to move snow to the event sites."We are going to create a fantastic field of play and we are just doing it a little differently than we had originally planned," she said.Christian Hrab, high performance director for Canada Snowboard, said the design of the course is what matters most to his athletes."What we are looking for is shape," said Hrab.