NORWAY – Speed junkie Jeff Read gave a glimpse of what he is capable of.
Flying between the gates and to the finish of one of Norway’s fastest hills, the Canmore alpine skier knew his world cup seventh place in men’s downhill last weekend would turn some heads, but one thing's certain about the 24-year-old is that he’s brimming with confidence in himself and his quick skiing.
“It’s not like it was a surprise for me,” said Read. “It may have caught some people by surprise because my name was at the bottom of the result sheet for the last three days … [but] the opportunity was there if you went in and risked it.”
If you want to ski fast then the track at Kvitfjell, Norway, is the place to do it because of its lack of slow points.
Despite finishing last in the weekend’s first world cup race after nearly crashing into the netting, Read still had a fearless spirit and knew exactly what to do, and where to be, to add himself into the mix of world cup players.
Starting way back with Bib 42, Read punched it into the top 10 on Saturday (March 5), a personal best on the world cup. He crossed the finish line at a time of 1:45.31 – 0.58 seconds away from a podium.
He said it was relieving to “put one down, top to bottom, clean.”
“It feels like to me that I found my stride and I’m able to ski how I know I can,” Read said.
“I was definitely struggling all year with sort of broken down confidence or having races where I’m skiing fast and just having mistakes that were costing me good results. To finally get out there and ski to how I feel I truly can is a really big confidence boost.
“Confidence is such a funny thing in this sport; all year [Canadian teammate] Jack Crawford he had the confidence, and he was just throwing it in there and it was no different than [the rest of] us.”
Crawford won bronze in alpine combined at the Beijing Olympics last month.
Read, an Olympic alternate, said he needed stronger results to make the Beijing Games, but not qualifying was his motivation fuel for the remainder of the season.
“It was definitely me trying to show my true colours and really show that I would have belonged at the Olympics … but it feels like that one was in place and made up for the Olympics and it’s something I wish I could have done there, but of course, [there’s] nothing I can do about it now, but move on and learn from this.”
Italy’s Dominik Paris finished first at a time of 1:43.92. Norway’s Aamodt Aleksander Kilde took silver and bronze had a two-way tie between Swiss skiers Niels Hintermann and Feuz Beat.
A few weeks prior, Beat won gold in men’s downhill at the Beijing Games.
In Saturday’s race, Read finished ahead of Beijing’s silver and bronze medallists Matthias Mayer and Johan Clarey.
“Those guys are pretty big legends in the sport, so to be able to compete at or above them is definitely pretty cool,” said Read.
It was a remarkable weekend for Canada’s speed team in Norway.
On the first day of downhill, Canada’s Cameron Alexander won gold. On day two of downhill, all four Canadian starters finished in the top-20. On the third day, Crawford won silver in the super-G, and Broderick Thompson and Trevor Philp each finished inside the top 20.
“There’s something special happening in our team right now. Everyone is showing it, we clearly have a lot of speed as a country and I think this is just the start of something,” said Alexander in a press release.
