Alpine skiing: Jansrud claims season-opening downhill
Jansrud posted his first career win at Lake Louise.
LAKE LOUISE (AFP) - Olympic super-G champion Kjetil Jansrud captured the season-opening men s World Cup downhill Saturday by holding off a fierce challenge from Manny Osborne-Paradis and Guillermo Fayed.
The 29-year-old Jansrud finished the 3,133 metre course in one minute, 50.20 seconds in the first of two World Cup races this weekend in the Canadian Rockies.
Skiing back-to-back in the 26th and 27th positions, France s Fayed and Canada s Osborne-Paradis clocked identical 1:50.34 times to finish in a tie for second.
Jansrud, who also had the fastest time in Wednesday s lone training run, posted his first career win at Lake Louise.
He earned US$31,000 (C$35,000) for the victory while Osborne-Paradis and Fayed collected $20,000 each.
Organizers had to cancel Thursday and Friday s training runs after storms dumped 50 centimetres (19 inches) of snow on the course.
But the racers were greeted with a sun-splashed icy piste on Saturday morning with temperatures hovering around -24 Celsius (-11 Fahrenheit).
Italy s Dominik Paris, who won last year s Lake Louise downhill, finished fourth in 1:50.61 while American Marco Sullivan rounded out the top five with a time of 1:50.68.
Jansrud won two Olympic medals at the Sochi Games earlier this year, taking a bronze in downhill to go along with his super-G gold. He almost collected a third Sochi medal, finishing fourth in the combined.
Crowd favourite Osborne-Paradis won his first World Cup medal in at Lake Louise in 2006, placing second.
Saturday s podium finish is expected to be a huge confidence boost for the newly-married Canuck veteran. He is still trying to come back from a devastating crash almost four years ago in which he broke his leg and tore a ligament.
"It is nice to stand on the podium again," said Osborne-Paradis, who took two years off after the crash.
Osborne-Paradis finished a disappointing 28th in the downhill at the Canadian venue last year.
Fayed, who turned 29 on Friday, celebrated his birthday with the first World Cup podium of his career.
Austria s Matthias Mayer, who shocked the ski world when he claimed the downhill gold in Sochi, placed 15th with a time of 1:51.28.
With the victory, Jansrud seizes an early lead in the World Cup downhill standings with 100 points. Osborne-Paradis and Fayed each have 80.
The second Lake Louise race and first super-G of the 2014-15 season is scheduled for Sunday.
After Sunday s race, the next stop for the men is a downhill race Friday in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
