LAKE LOUISE, Alta. – Erik Guay posted the second-fastest time in training for Saturday’s downhill at the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup and Canadian teammate John Kucera decided to skip the race.
Guay, the reigning world downhill champion, finished behind Adrien Theaux of France on Friday. The native of Mont-Tremblant, Que., was fifth in the first training run Thursday.
Two fast test runs does not necessarily translate into a podium finish on race day, Guay cautioned.
“The key words in that is ‘training runs’, Guay said Friday “It’s almost a bit of a bad luck to have runs like this. Until there’s a good result on race days, I’m not setting my sights too high.”
Kucera was 64th on Friday. The world downhill champ of 2009 hasn’t raced since breaking his leg in the downhill at Lake Louise two years ago.
The Calgarian’s world ranking was frozen when he was injured. In order protect it, and retain the advantage of starting among the top 30 skiers, Kucera decided to delay his return.
“Ranking is a big part of this,” Kucera said. “To come in here and finish 50th, 40th or 35th and out of the points and to get moved out (of the top 30), there’s no point. It makes more sense to go and train a little bit more.”
It’s likely Kucera will also sit out Sunday’s super-G, an event he won at Lake Louise in 2006.
Kucera indicated that if he didn’t feel ready for the downhill after two training runs, he’d feel even less prepared for super-G in which the athletes get one inspection of the course before the race.
Theaux collected his second top-two finish Friday, but 27-year-old from Val-Thorens agreed with Guay on the significance of those results.
“It’s not the same, training. It’s not the race,” the Frenchman said.
Conditions constantly changed Friday with sun, cloud, snow and gusting winds, so times were slower than the previous day.
Theaux covered the Lake Louise track in one minute 50.25 seconds, followed by Guay in 1:50.32 and Sweden’s Hans Olsson in 1:50.67.
“Difficult, because it’s very windy on the top,” Theaux said. “We did one good training yesterday. It was a little bit soft but was OK. Today, (was) just for inspection.”
World Cup downhill and super-G champion Didier Cuche of Switzerland was almost two seconds back of Theaux, who won his first downhill last season in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
The forecast for Saturday’s race is partly cloudy with a high of minus-9 and winds of 25 kilometres per hour.
Guay earned his first World Cup podium at Lake Louise in 2003 with a silver in the downhill.
He maintains he’s a slow starter and his expectations are even lower this year at Lake Louise. Coddling a herniated disc in his back during the off-season kept him off snow. Guay also lost almost 20 pounds in muscle mass.
“More encouraging is my back,” the 30-year-old said. “I did have some minor flare-ups after (Friday’s) race. The part I’m happy with is a lot of times if my back isn’t feeling that great I ski stiff. Today, I was still able to stay relaxed and work through it.
“My objective is Sunday when I want to walk away from here with my back feeling pretty good. The season is really long so I want to get a platform under my feet and start building from there.”
Calgary’s Jan Hudec didn’t participate in Friday’s training session after finishing seventh the previous day. Hudec, a downhill winner at Lake Louise four years ago, also missed off-season snow training because of a bad back.
The 30-year-old had been pushing hard to prepare for Lake Louise. After satisfying himself that he had a handle on the track, Hudec decided to conserve his energy for Saturday.
“In the past, I’ve always stressed out the coaches skiing too conservative in the first training run and ending up 50th and striking fear into the coach to see if I even know how to ski anymore,” Hudec said earlier. “I’m trying to change my game plan a little this year and it worked pretty perfectly.”
Canada’s skiers had their fingers pricked for blood samples following their training runs. Strength and conditioning coach Matt Price measured their lactic acid levels.
“We know how hard they just worked in that period time,” Price explained. “You’re always collecting information on your athletes and trying to understand how hard the course is on their body.
“It could give me information as to how I’m going to detail their recovery a little more accurately or warm them up better in the morning.”
In a field of 83, Rob Dixon of Whistler, B.C., was 37th, Ottawa’s Ryan Semple 47th, Louis-Pierre Helie of Berthierville, Que., 51st, Kelby Halbert of Bradford, Ont., 54th, Dustin Cook of Lac Sainte Marie, Que., 56th, Conrad Pridy of Whistler, B.C., 65th and Ben Thomsen of Invermere, Ont., 69th.
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