Erik Guay is ending his career at the same hill where he won his first World Cup medal 15 years ago.
Canada’s most decorated alpine skier announced his retirement Thursday as skiers participated in their second day of training for this weekend’s World Cup downhill at Lake Louise.
“Today is a bittersweet day as I close a chapter on what has been a significant part of my life; decades of striving to be the best ski racer in the world, representing my country around the globe, and being a member of an incredible team,” Guay said in a statement.
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Guay told The Canadian Press last month that this would be his final ski season. He said he wanted to spend more time at home with his wife Karen and four daughters, who range in age from one to nine years old.
But the 37-year-old Montreal native decided to accelerate that timeline after he was 69th in Wednesday’s first training run with a time of one minute 51.36 seconds, 3.79 seconds behind pace-setter Christof Innerhofer. A news conference with Guay initially scheduled for Friday was moved up to Thursday.
The three-time Olympian earned 25 World Cup medals and captured three world championship medals, including two gold, over his career.
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He won his first World Cup medal when he took silver in a downhill race at Lake Louise on Nov. 29, 2003.
His first victory came in 2007 in Garmisch where he won the men’s downhill. Guay won a coveted crystal globe in 2010 as the overall World Cup leader in super-G that season.
“He’s huge to the ski-racing community in Canada,” Canadian team skier Dustin Cook said. “I remember watching him as a kid. It’s definitely a loss for the team. We knew it was coming. It’s still a big hole to fill and big boots to fill for us.”
“He has so much experience and leadership. It’s definitely a tough one for us.”
Guay competed in three Olympic Games missing the super-G podium by 0.03 seconds in 2010 in Whistler, B.C.
While an Olympic medal eluded Guay, he won gold medals at two world championships, including the downhill title in 2011.
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Less than two weeks after crashing spectacularly in a World Cup downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Guay won gold in super-G and silver in downhill at the 2017 world alpine ski championship.
Guay has dealt with knee and back injuries in recent years. He took the entire 2014-15 season off after a pair of surgeries on his left knee.
A back injury forced him to withdraw from February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
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‘He’s very serious’
Reigning Olympic men’s downhill champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway said Guay was a tough, dedicated competitor.
“He’s been one of the best downhill skiers we’ve had over the last, I would say, my generation for sure,” Svindal said Thursday in the finishing area.
“He’s very serious, but if you’re not serious and take your training seriously as a professional athlete then you probably don’t deserve to be that good.”
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From 2006 to 2014, Guay, Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Jan Hudec and John Kucera made the Canadian downhill team an international force reminiscent of the Crazy Canucks of the 1980s.
When asked a year ago what he wanted his legacy to be, Guay replied: “I just want to know that ski racing is in a healthy place in Canada.
“I don’t want to wait another 20 years until the next group of Crazy Canucks steps onto the podium. I think we have a lot of potential in Canada. We have a lot of young athletes that are very talented.
“There’s no reason we can’t be as competitive as the Swiss and Austrians.”