GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany – Erik Guay’s blissful relationship with the Kandahar racecourse magnified to golden proportions in the 2011 world championship downhill race. The Canadian who landed his first ever victory on the World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2007 and secured the super G globe here last year, winning at World Cup finals, blazed down the long, bumpy Kandahar course to victory again on Saturday, earning the first medal of his career … the gold.

“Winning the crystal globe – and winning it here in Garmisch, then to be downhill world champion … it doesn’t really get any better,” Guay said, adding that he sometimes gets a sixth sense premonition before his most successful races, but on Saturday it was pure formula that made it happen. “I had a great start number – number 10 – and I just skied the run of my life. Usually in the morning or before my start I can tell I’m going to have a great day. Today I didn’t really feel that but I had a game plan: Stay calm and execute where I needed to and I think I did that. So I’m just taking it all in.”

Spring-like weather continued in Garmisch as Guay charged down the Kandahar in 1 minute, 58.41 seconds, gaining speed the whole way down and Didier Cuche, who had been calculating his energy in training all week to unleash in the race on Saturday, landed the silver – the fourth world champs medal of his long career – 0.32 seconds back. Christof Innerhofer, whose super G gold on Wednesday seems to have gifted him the extra hundredths of speed it takes for consistent podium finishes, landed his second medal in four days with the bronze, 0.76 seconds out.

Guay said his wife and 2-year-old daughter Logan were watching the championship race on TV “and also freaking out” on Saturday. The 29-year-old speed skier has struggled with back pain this season and missed a gate in the championship super G this week. His only standout World Cup result so far this season was a third in the Val Gardena super G, although he has 14 Cup podiums beginning in 2003 including three victories to his name, four of them in Garmisch. He has come close to Olympic medals – finishing fourth in the 2006 super G and fifth in both the SG and downhill at home in Canada last February, but Saturday’s medal was his first. His teammate, John Kucera, who is recovering from a broken leg sustained last season and wasn’t able to defend his medal on Saturday, won the world championship downhill gold in 2009 after just three previous podiums including one victory – all in super G – on the World Cup.

“Yeah, it’s the Canadian cowboys, man,” Guay said on Saturday. “You just gotta step it up at big events. It’s been a tough year for me in general but yeah, Garmisch is my favorite hill and this is a great place for me.”

Cuche, who was the 18th racer down the course, has 59 World Cup podiums dating back to his first victory in the Kitzbuehel downhill in 1998 and although these world championships at Garmisch are the sixth of his career, Saturday’s medal was just his fourth. He said it will rank as one of the most important, however, because he really had to work for it.

“It wasn’t easy to start in those conditions, starting from the back, it was really soft. I knew that even before the start that it could be I go home without any medal in the speed events,” he said. “That’s why I’m really happy being second here. I think I [won] the second place, I didn’t lose the victory.”

Innerhofer was deliriously happy after winning the bronze and continuing his world championship parade, which he had thought would end with the gold medal in Wednesday’s super G.

“It’s unbelievable days – three days and two medals – Wow. I cannot dream [of] this,” the Italian said. “After the super G, I said, ‘Christof, you cannot any more win. Because the other guys – the favorites – they must do well. They want medals.’ For me, all what is coming more … it’s great and I cannot believe it. Garmisch is a dream for me.”

Austria’s Romed Baumann, who was sixth in the super G earlier this week, came in fourth Saturday, 1.10 seconds behind Guay and 0.34 out of the medals. Although there were only a handful of crashes on course and seven DNFs altogether, the world championship men’s downhill accounted for more crash landings than any race in recent memory. At least 15 racers unwittingly hit the ground after crossing the finish line on Saturday, several tumbling violently into the inflatable barrier around the finish. Aksel Lund Svindal, who ended up fifth, 1.42 seconds out, had to be peeled out from under the barrier and, although he was walking without apparent major injury, left the finish area promptly without comment.

Cuche said that exhaustion is what mainly accounted for racers’ inability to put on the brakes in time upon crossing the finish line, although in downhill training earlier in the week, there wasn’t such a problem as speeds were slower coming into the short finish area.

“We have been tired in the training runs also. We were standing up early so we had less speed coming to the finish,” Cuche said.

There were some significant gaps in finish times in Saturday’s downhill. Following Svindal, Slovenia’s Andrej Sporn was sixth, 1.84 seconds back and, skiing in his last championship downhill, Michael Walchhofer wasn’t far behind in seventh, 1.87 seconds back. France’s Johan Clarey was eighth, 1.94 seconds back and everyone else was more than 2 seconds out.

Switzerland’s Carlo Janka opted to skip the world championship downhill race and will also miss Monday’s super-combined, due to ongoing health problems, but will return for the world championship giant slalom on Friday. His teammates, Beat Feuz and Ambrosi Hoffman, were ninth and 10th, respectively, in the downhill.

Of other top contenders, Bode Miller just didn't put the speed together Saturday, finishing 15th and France's Adrien Theaux, who led the final downhill training in Garmisch, crashed into the nets at the first big left turn on the course, but skied down without major injuries.

by Shauna Farnell
FISalpine.com
Saturday 12 February 2011