LAKE LOUISE, Canada – It’s finally time for the first speed events of the season and Lake Louise is in prime shape this year. In the past weeks the Canadian resort had low temperatures and was able to bring all snowmaking efforts on the race course and have it fully ready for the first training this Wednesday.

Despite the light snowfall and somewhat low visibility today’s first training run of the season was also the first opportunity for racers to ski a course set by new FIS Speed Race Director Hannes Trinkl .

Trinkl who was a successful speed skier for Austria and earned a victory and second place in Lake louise in 1999 and 2002, made some changes to the downhill line used in the past years by FIS Speed Race Director Helmuth Schmalzl and the skiers seemed to appreciate the change.

Canadian Manuel Osborne-Paradis who clocked the second fastest time of today’s training, 0.33 seconds behind Kjetil Jansrud, praised the new downhill course.

“The new course-set has been awesome, it’s not faster yet it feels a lot more like downhill and allows you to tuck a lot more. That’s what I like. It’s quite different, with more doubles and open gates in some areas. Tactically it has been set very well where there is some great singles on the flats that slow you down so that the speed is really not much higher while the whole course skis a lot more like a downhill,” Osborne-Paradis described the new course.

First trainings are usually not the best predictors of what can be expected on race day but today’s training was very important as the weather forecast for Thursday and Friday might pose some challenges in delivering the second and third scheduled training runs so today might have been the best opportunity for the racers to get confortable on the slope. Luckily, the predicted storm should move on from lake Louise during Friday and a beautiful sunny weekend is expected for the first speed races of the season.