An advanced scouting report courtesy a fellow countryman helped land Calgary resident Manuel Osborne-Paradis onto the podium.
Erik Guay, 35, just finished his run down the hill during the super-G World Alpine Ski Championships Wednesday at St. Moritz, Switzerland. Laying down the eventual winning time of 1:25.38, he called back up the hill to Osborne-Paradis to relay intel on the hill.
“He actually phoned me two guys before I went down and gave me a course report,” Osborne-Paradis told Global News over the phone. “I know he was biting his nails a little bit because I was giving him a run for his money until I made a mistake halfway down the hill.”
It was quite the present for his teammate on his 33rd birthday. Osborne-Paradis finished third, 0.51 seconds behind Guay and with his mother in attendance.
Guay became the oldest skier to win an alpine title.
“It was a huge team effort. When Erik went down, he got me so jazzed and fired up. I was feeling lethargic in the start, but he just got me totally amped up,” Osborne-Paradis said. “We train together, so when a guy puts down a great run, you know you also can do something like that.”
It has been a long road back to the podium for Osborne-Paradis. He started the season wearing a bib in the 50s — skiers ranked that low are seen as longshots to medal. His last podium appearance in the super-G came back in November 2009.
“It has been a grind this year in the super-G for myself. I haven’t had a good starting number all year,” Osborne-Paradis said. “Finally in Kitzbuehel, I worked myself up to a good starting number. I had a good start number for this race and pulled something out of it.”
Sandwiched in between the two Canucks was Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud, an Olympic champion who finished 0.45 seconds back of Guay.
The strong showing in the Swiss Alps will be used as a building block for the two veterans, as they eye up another Olympic experience on the horizon.
“There were a lot of naysayers that didn’t think I had what it took. The only way to prove people wrong is with results like this,” the new dad said.
This isn’t the first time the duo shared a spot on the podium. Guay snagged silver and Osborne-Paradis brought home the bronze during the 2007 World Cup downhill in Val-d’Isere, France.
“That is the best part of this, being able to experience it together. To have another teammate up there — both of us were pretty ecstatic,” Osborne-Paradis said.
Osborne-Paradis and Guay hope to snowball the momentum into the downhill race that starts Friday.
With interview from Brendan Parker