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Olympic venues get real snow, a rarity.

After more than a week of competing on courses lined with machine-made snow, Olympians in Beijing are waking up to the sight of real snow in the capital and the surrounding mountains.

A steady snow that began Saturday continued in Zhangjiakou, a city roughly 100 miles northwest of China’s capital that is host to some skiing and snowboarding events. Some of those events were delayed Sunday. Snow expanded overnight to Beijing and Yanqing, an area in the corner of northwest Beijing where wind and the flakes delayed to another day the women’s slopestyle event.

Workers at the venue cleared snow with brooms and leaf blowers, and tractors with long, rolled brushes made quick work of clearing roads.