Skiers and coaches complained that there were not enough workers to clean fresh snow off the course after downhill training on the 2014 Sochi Olympics slope was cancelled Thursday.

There are only about 200 slippers working on the Rosa Khutor course for the women's World Cup races — a major test for the Games — whereas there are usually twice that number at other races.

"You can have 2,000 slippers and you still don't clean the snow, because the snow is sticking to the ground," said women's World Cup director Atle Skaardal. "It's like slipping water — you think you move it but it's still there.

"It's difficult to clean a course three kilometres long and 150 metres wide with 20 centimetres of sticky snow," Skaardal added.

Organizers first delayed the start of the session by an hour, then called it off completely.

"The visibility is good but there's a lot of snow," giant slalom world champion Tina Maze told The Associated Press. "They need to do a lot of work, but I heard there's nobody on the course.

"I hope they wake up."

While the base of the valley was covered in fog, that didn't seem to be a problem up on the course.

"Actually, the visibility is not bad at all," said U.S. speed coach Chip White. "There's just a lot of snow and, at the moment, not enough people to clean it up."

Wolfgang Mitter, an Austrian who is co-ordinating these events for the Russian ski federation, saw things differently.

"There was no visibility the whole day, so even if we had a good slope we couldn't have had the training run today," Mitter said. "The weather changes very quickly here."

A third and final training session is scheduled for Friday before the downhill race Saturday and a super-combined Sunday.

In Wednesday's opening training session, most of the skiers were ordered to slow down before the course's two main jumps, meaning most athletes have not had a complete run at full speed.

World Cup rules require one training session to be completed before a downhill race, and Skaardal said the race jury decided unanimously that Wednesday's session counted.

"The jumps were [shaved] down, so I don't think they should worry too much about the jumps," Skaardal said.

Still, athletes were concerned.

"I don't know what yesterday was," Maze said. "I'm not sure what they're calling it, but for me it wasn't a real training session because we stopped for the yellow flags."

Defending overall World Cup winner Maria Hoefl-Riesch also would like to have a full-speed training run before the races.

"That's what I think but you never know what they will do," Hoefl-Riesch said. "I hope there's not too much more snow coming."

While the weather should improve Friday, more snow is forecast Saturday.

The situation brings to mind how bad weather wreaked havoc with the schedule at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, where there was no full training run for the women before the downhill medal race. Instead, the training was done in two parts — the upper portion one day and the bottom another, and skiers never went full speed over the final jump.

In the race, Dominique Gisin of Switzerland had a horrible fall down the final pitch and Swedish standout Anja Paerson lost control off the final jump, got a huge amount of air and slid through the finish headfirst.