Four Canadians jammed into the top 20 at the men’s downhill race in Bormio, Italy on Dec. 29, led by Invermere youngster Ben Thomsen.
Thomsen was the fastest Canuck on the day, finishing 15th, followed by Banff native Jan Hudec (17th) and comeback kid Manuel Osborne-Paradis (18th).
“It went really well, but I made a couple of mistakes that were really costly,” said Thomsen, who clocked a time of one minute, 59.87 seconds. “Things are going in the right direction. I’m excited to get home and take a break and then see how I do in Kitzbühel (Austria) and Wengen (Switzerland).”
Thomsen’s hard-charging run on one of the toughest courses in the world paid off as the young speed racer continues to improve. He had a rough start to the season in Lake Louise, but appears to have regained his form. He still found lots to improve on with his run, though.
“The week was pretty slow through the training runs,” Thomsen said. “I didn’t think I had to change my skiing, but I needed to get the race mindset on – the race face. You can’t really see it on TV, but towards the middle, in the major section where the race is won and lost, I just went too straight into an uphill kind of part.”
Hudec was in a great position on the top of the run, but lost valuable time at the bottom of the course.
“I had the speed, but ended up over-skiing some of the sections up top,” said Hudec, who crossed the line in 2:00.10. “I should have been ahead in the top half or at least competitive but I lost three-tenths (of a second) and then another second at the bottom. I needed to clean up the bottom a bit.
“I did okay but our skiing was better than our results showed today.”
Hudec said his knees were bothering him on race day, but he managed to ski through the pain.
“Bormio is rough. It’s dark, it’s bumpy – it’s brutal on the legs,” said Hudec. “You’ve got to will your way through to the finish. It’s a test of willpower at the end. I was just burned when I got to the finish.”
He won bronze on the course in 2007.
Osborne-Paradis said the race felt like his first true comeback on a tough course, and he was satisfied with the result. Erik Guay battled a fever on race day and finished 24th. He’s currently ranked seventh in World Cup standings, slipping from third.
Head coach Pete Bosinger said the results were solid, but the men’s team wants more.
“It’s a solid day, but these guys want to ski onto the podium,” Bosinger said. “Ben has been struggling and for him to ski to where he was today was a step in the right direction. Manny (Osborne-Paradis) has had some great races this year when you consider where he’s coming from.
“With Jan, for sure we expected more. He had some great stuff going on in the second training run, but at least he’s still competitive and showing he has good speed. The biggest positive is that he is still able to race with the pain he’s feeling in his knee and push himself. Erik was sick and he was out of gas.”
Saturday’s race was one of the tightest in alpine skiing history. One-hundredth of a second separated the top three and the fourth-place finisher was a further one-hundredth of a second behind. Italy’s Dominik Paris and Austria’s Hannes Reichelt tied for the win with a time of 1:58.62 and Norwegian superstar Aksel Lund Svindal was third in 1:58.63. Austria’s Klaus Kroell was fourth in 1:58.64.
The next downhill takes place on Jan. 19 in Wengen.
