Organisers have denied claims the conditions during the final were unsafe ©Getty Images

Concerns that the safety of the riders in the slopestyle final at the Winter Olympic Games snowboard was put in jeopardy have been dismissed by the International Ski Federation (FIS) after they claimed only one country questioned the decision to allow the event to go ahead.

A number of riders criticised organisers for not postponing the competition because of the strong winds at the Phoenix Snow Park yesterday.

Only nine clean runs were recorded among the field of 50 as a host of athletes crashed.

There were claims the event should have been rescheduled, as has been the case in a number of Alpine skiing races already during the Games here.

FIS communications manager Jenny Wiedeke said "nobody was forced to go down and compete", a comment set to spark anger among the athletes who participated in howling gusts of wind.

Big air world champion Anna Gasser of Austria admitted she was "disappointed" the FIS did not postpone the event.

Finnish rider Enni Rukajärvi, a silver medallist at Sochi 2014, said it should have been cancelled as it was "too dangerous".

"The bulk of the reaction was in the mixed zone and not to FIS officials directly," Wiedeke said. 

"We know that it was very difficult conditions for the riders.

"Each rider had two opportunities to perform their run. 

"Nobody is forced to go down and compete."

Austria's Anna Gasser was among the athletes to raise concerns about the event going ahead ©Getty Images
Austria's Anna Gasser was among the athletes to raise concerns about the event going ahead ©Getty Images

Wiedeke declined to name the country who had raised concerns about going ahead with the event.

"I spoke to my contest director - which is the equivalent of a race director in snowboarding - and he said only one team came to him to say something," she said.

"I would prefer not to single out the team.

"It wasn't a protest that one team issued, they just went to our race director and voiced their concerns about the wind conditions so there was no formal protest."

Owing to the bad conditions, the snowboarders competed in two runs rather than the normal three.

The best score of the two runs counted.

Many of the snowboarders fell on the second run as conditions worsened.

Australian snowboarder Tess Coady took to social media to blame the wind for the anterior cruciate ligament injury she suffered during practice for qualifying the previous day.