Delays are an unfortunate fact of life.
Winter sports athletes know this more than anyone.
Weather can roll in, conditions can change in the blink of an eye.
On Tuesday morning in Livigno, competitors were met by blustery wind and heavy snowfall similar to conditions that brought a halt to many events on Monday.
As time went on, fog also rolled into the valley, making visibility even worse.
Aerials is, without a doubt, one of the most risky events at the Winter Olympics.
Athletes flip and spin up to 15 metres in the air before attempting to stick a landing on a 37-degree slope of crushed snow.
Getting your speed down the in-run — a 70-metre, 25-degree slope that takes skiers towards a kicker that is either 3.5 or 4.1 metres high, with an angle of 65 or 71 degrees respectively — is crucial.
So, with fresh snow falling regularly, judging the speed required to complete the tricks gets harder, which can have utterly catastrophic consequences.
"And then, as the fog rolled in, we had some trouble with medical [services] having access to the site," Australia's aerials coach Renee McElduff said.
"If medical can't be here, then it's a little bit unsafe for us to jump without that service available to us."
Fortunately, thanks to some "nuts" training methods, Australia's aerialists were well prepared for the delays and eventual postponement of the competition.
"We practice for this," McElduff said after the qualifying session was cancelled.
"When we're in Brisbane at our water ramp at Sleeman Sports Complex there, we do lots of scenario planning and this is definitely something that we've trained for."
If you're assuming that scenario training means letting athletes get ready to jump in mock competitions, only to pull the plug and tell them to stand down for a while, you're absolutely right — an unusual roll play under the baking Brisbane sun for occasions where the temperature drops and the snow falls.
"The athletes think we're a little nuts sometimes, but that's exactly what we do," McElduff said.
"We might have a mock competition, let's say, and we'll cancel the competition or have a wind hold for 20 minutes and the athletes will have to sit and re-warm up and then we go again.
"Just throwing whatever we can at them because we don't know what's going to be thrown at us when we get out here."
Plenty has already been thrown in this team's direction these Games.
Laura Peel was heartbreakingly ruled out on the eve of the competition getting underway.
The snowy conditions yesterday meant that training was cancelled for the day and now the athletes are going to have to revert to completing qualifying and finals on the same day, a test of endurance that some may struggle with.
Spare a thought, in particular, for Sidney Stephens, the 24-year-old World Cup rookie, thrust into her maiden Olympics with barely any time to think, let alone practice.
"It's a little bit more challenging for Sidney, who had the late call up and has had seven jumps in about a month on the double," McElduff said
"She's got a bit of a tall order ahead of her tomorrow, but she's taking it like a champion.
"She's resilient and she'll be ready to come out and put on the best show she can tomorrow."
Stephens, a South Africa-born, Western Australia-raised former elite gymnast who swapped out the balance beam for the doubles ramp aged 18, is competing in her first ever Olympics after just 10 FIS World Cup starts.
She replaced Peel, who is here with the team, despite the obvious heartache being so close to the Games must be causing her.
"We had always hoped that Laura might recover and be able to jump here," McIlduff said.
"But it was definitely a blow for our team. She's kind of the leader of this team and really pulls everybody together.
"So it was something we definitely needed to reset and regroup from, but the team have rallied together and are going to come out here and jump for Laura and do the best that they can.
"It is challenging, but everybody that does winter sports knows the risks associated with it, and so we really try to keep our blinkers on and focus on the task at hand.
"It's really important [that she's here].
"We have quite a young team here other than Danielle Scott, the rest are now first-time Olympians.
"We've got three champions of aerial skiing [Alisa Camplin-Warner, Lydia Lassiler and Peel] supporting our team and passing on wisdom and advice … it's nice that we can nearly look anywhere out on the site and see someone who knows what they're going through and give them a smile or a hug and kind of help build this team together."
If nothing else, this team just wants to get jumping again and kick start their competition.
Scott, competing in her fourth Games, is a genuine chance, especially if conditions are not ideal.
If the top women are nervous about attempting triples in tough conditions then the competition falls into Scott's hands.
Conditions are supposed to be better on Wednesday for the women's competition, but McElduff said the four-time world championship medallist is ready for anything.
"She's the most versatile of all the athletes in our team and she's ready for any situation that comes at her," McElduff said.
"For her, the beauty is that her technical jumping is second to none, she can execute on the double or the triple and it doesn't matter what we need to do, she's ready to go."
It made the fact that there was no jumping today a little frustrating.
"It's a little disappointing we couldn't jump today," McElduff said.
"But our athletes's safety is our number one priority.
"So if that's at risk, then it's absolutely the right decision.
"The one thing we know for sure in winter sports is that it's uncertain, so our athletes are flexible and we train all kinds of different things to be ready for these kind of situations.
"We'll go home this afternoon and the guys will get some recovery in and we'll regroup to get ready for a double qualification and final day tomorrow."
