KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Late last week, a senior adviser to the Sochi Olympics convened an emergency meeting with top winter sports officials at the Park Inn hotel in the Alpine village here.

A situation had grown dire. It was not security, attendance or doping that was the problem. It was salt.

Four months earlier, Hans Pieren, one of the world’s leading experts on salt and snow, had told Sochi officials that the Alpine skiing events required more than 19 tons of salt, a crucial ingredient for winter sports officials who want to melt soft snow so it can refreeze into a hard surface.

But to their great regret, the organizers had not listened. Now, with 10 days of competition remaining, many of the games’ signature events were in jeopardy of being compromised, and perhaps even canceled.

Tim Gayda, a Canadian consultant who works as a senior adviser to the Sochi organizers, called the meeting Thursday night, according to some people who were there. He told the group that the strongest kind of salt, the large-grain variety, was simply not available in Russia. Gayda asked the group an urgent question: Does anyone know how we can get 25 tons of salt — tonight?

From there, a confidential international mission unspooled — a mountaintop “Ocean’s 11” — that just might have prevented a major Olympic embarrassment. This Sochi salt accord involved a Swiss salt salesman working late into the night; a rerouted airplane that may or may not have come from Bulgaria; a former Olympian turned salt savant; and Russians powerful enough to clear months of customs bureaucracy overnight.

It began with Hans Pieren, 52, a ruddy Swiss skier who works as a senior race director for FIS, the international ski federation. He discusses the merits of different salt grains with the precision of a jeweler and often carries plastic sandwich bags with grains of salt — fine, medium and large. (He brought all three to a recent interview.)

Last September, Pieren made a final inspection of the Alpine skiing courses and told Sochi organizers that he needed 19 tons of salt for the games — 2 tons of fine-grain salt, 7 tons of medium and, most important, 10 tons of large-grain Himalaya-style salt. This was the heavy-duty salt that sank deep into the snow, lasted longer and would be most effective in warm weather.

In emphatic but imperfect English, Pieren placed his order in a Sept. 29 email to Yves Dimier, the head of Alpine sports for Sochi’s organizing committee.

“If the conditions are incredible bad or wears than expected, we need maybe more salt and have to get more,” Pieren wrote.

Pieren, who competed in Alpine skiing events at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics and now works with international competitions, was used to getting his way on matters of salt. Guided by intuition and experience, he combines different grains to find the right solution for every kind of snow.

“When we order something, it is not a wish,” he said. “It is a must.”

But Sochi organizers did not listen. After spending more than $50 billion on the games, they did not fill the salt order, which would have cost perhaps a few thousand dollars.

Why salt

Dimier and a spokesman declined to comment on his role in the decision, and the Sochi press office did not directly say why organizers did not heed Pieren’s advice. But they acknowledged both the importance of the large-grained salt, and its scarcity in Russia.

Sochi had hardly any large salt crystals at all, less than a ton — nowhere near enough to harden expanses of soft snow, according to Pieren. And the temperatures on the mountain were rising.

Homeowners use salt to melt ice on the sidewalk, but Alpine experts cleverly use it to overcome soft snow conditions when a hard, icy surface is preferable. The salt melts the soft snow, and when the temperature drops — usually overnight — a layer of ice forms. Large-grain salt, about 5 millimeters in size, is best for soft, deep snow, because it drops farther into the snow and lasts for days, not hours.

By the time of the emergency meeting, the world was watching Olympic athletes who had spent their lives training for these competitions. But it could all be undone because of 5-millimeter grains of salt, or rather, the lack of them.

“They didn’t recognize the importance of the salt,” Pieren said. “They don’t know anything about salt.”

Something missing

It was not just the Alpine skiing races that were in trouble. Pieren fielded frantic calls from colleagues across the mountain — at cross-country, the halfpipe, Nordic combined. All were worried about the conditions. All were in need of salt.

Prominent athletes began to complain about the conditions. The halfpipe is “pretty hard to ride,” said Shaun White, a U.S. snowboarder and one of the games’ biggest stars. “Once everyone gets in there, it just turns to mush.”

Sochi officials had to act swiftly. When Gayda asked about arranging an emergency infusion of salt, Pieren knew where to turn. He called Schweizer Rheinsalinen, a 160-year-old company near Basel, Switzerland, that sits on the banks of the river for which it is named. On its website, the company declares salt “a world unto itself.”

Pieren reached Marcel Plattner, a sales accountant who works mostly in food-grade salt. Pieren told him he was in trouble.

“Not him personally in trouble, but he told me Sochi didn’t have enough salt,” Plattner said.

Pieren was relieved to hear the Swiss company had plenty of big-grain salt in a nearby warehouse; he said Olympic officials would buy 24 tons if it could be shipped immediately. At roughly $150 a ton, the bill would be more than $3,500.

Plattner was on a sales call with a supermarket chain when Pieren called. He was thrilled to help — he had been watching the games and was a fan of winter sports, hockey and skiing especially.

“I felt bad for the athletes,” he said. “It wasn’t their mistake.”

Once Schweizer Rheinsalinen agreed to the sale, the international ski federation helped reroute a plane to Zurich, according to Jenny Wiedeke, a spokeswoman for the organization. The plane would leave Zurich at 11 a.m., with or without the salt.

“If you’re too late, the show is gone,” Plattner said. “It was the time which was working against us.”

The ski federation and Sochi officials declined to describe how they secured a plane on such short notice. Plattner said he was told it came from Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

Plattner worked until 11 p.m. that night to make the arrangements. He said he did not even have time to tell his boss.

“It was very exciting,” he said.

After sleeping for a few hours, he went to work early Friday. Because of a miscommunication, he missed the 11 a.m. plane but managed to get the salt on another plane that left the main Zurich airport about 3 p.m., he said.

When the plane landed in Sochi, Russian officials expedited the customs process, according to the Sochi organizing committee.

After the salt passed a security check Friday, Olympic vehicles took the load straight to the mountain, and about 24 hours after the emergency salt meeting, workers stood on the mountain, sprinkling the soft snow with big-grained salt, fresh from Switzerland.

Even though problems with the course persisted Saturday, as several skiers in the women’s super-G struggled, Pieren said he believed that the worst was behind them.