THE WEATHER gods cursed the Vancouver Winter Olympics again yesterday, forcing delays to Alpine skiing, snowboarding and ski jumping, with rain near Vancouver and snow and fog shrouding the mountains.

It was the latest setback on day four of a Games which have been plagued by rain and unseasonably warm temperatures.

The blue riband downhill ski event, originally scheduled for Saturday, only took place on Monday. Organisers have now delayed the men’s super combined race to Sunday from yesterday, and pushed the giant slalom to Tuesday, February 23rd from Sunday.

Women’s Alpine racing is still scheduled to begin today, with the downhill in which America’s Lindsay Vonn is still favourite to win, despite a nasty shin injury.

At Cypress Mountain, closer to Vancouver, organisers delayed the women’s snowboard cross because of rain and fog, and refunded money to thousands of ticketholders because the ground was too soft.

“It’s just too unstable out there and too unsafe to have people walking around,” vice president of ticketing Caley Denton said of the cancellations, which affects standing room ticketholders only.

The warmest January in Vancouver history dumped rain instead of snow on the Cypress Mountain and Olympics organisers brought snow in by truck and helicopter to build the freestyle and snowboarding courses. With Olympic races already underway, that is no longer an option.

In ski-jumping, practice on the large hill was postponed for 30 minutes, and volunteers used leaf blowers to force snow out of the tracks down to the take-off point.

Yesterdays first gold medal winner was six-times world champion Magdalena Neuner of Germany in the women’s 10km biathlon pursuit. “The first thing I said when I crossed the finish line was: ‘Now I am Olympic champion’,” a beaming Neuner, wearing her trademark black and grey leggings, told reporters after she completed the course in 30 minutes 16 seconds.

One event that did begin as scheduled was the start of the men’s curling, where host nation Canada played Norway. Canada won 7-6.

Chinese husband-and-wife team Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo came out of retirement to break Russia’s extraordinary 46-year stranglehold on the figure skating pairs event on Monday, winning the gold medal.

They said they would retire – for keeps this time – and possibly have a baby.