The long waiting has come to an end, and the first Audi FIS Ski World Cup speed race of the season has been staged today in beautiful Lake Louise (CAN). After three training runs, there were a lot of speculations about potential winners, but I the end, the athletes have to bring on their performance on D-Day. And that’s what Aksel Lund Svindal did best.
The Norwegian multiple globe-winner (2x DH, 5x SG, 1x SC, 1x GS) was sidelined by an Achilles tendon injury and participated in only two races last season - World Championship DH (6th) and SG (6th) in Vail / Beaver Creek. His performances during the trainings (1st, 5th, 2nd) gave a hint about his excellent shape, but on the top section of the course his line was far from perfect. “I was definitively pushing it harder than in the training runs so it wasn’t that clean but that’s what happens when you are racing, you have to see where the limits are. I made a couple of mistakes that I thought would cost me more, luckily I was carrying good speed too and then I was a little bit surprised when I crossed the finish line, but it doesn’t matter as long as it is green”. In the end, Svindal and second-places Peter Fill are split by a mere 0.01 seconds.
Italy’s Peter Fill was very happy about his performance. “I like this hill, today was a good result for me, I was on the podium here twice before, and now again. For sure it’s the best way to start the season.” His last and only World Cup win was in Lake Louise’s downhill in 2008, and since then, he was struggling to hold on to top positions. “The last years were not so easy, I had a lot of injuries but now I’m ok, in a good shape, I’m fast, and I hope I can continue that way.”
The podium was rounded up by USA’s Travis Ganong, who earned his 3rd World Cup Podium. “I’m always far behind here in Lake Louise, it’s a flatter hill and I struggle with it because I’m a little smaller, so I’m really happy to figure out how to be fast here and the snow is perfect this year so I was able to push hard. I had an injury about 10 days ago, I had a big crash and I didn’t even know if I’d be here, so I’m just happy to be feeling ok, to be racing again and hopefully building from here through the whole season.” The 27-years old racer is looking forward to the upcoming races in front of his home crowd in Colorado. “Beaver Creek is more my hill, I love it there, I know the hill very well now and I have a lot of confidence there, so that’s a goal for sure.”
Surprisingly, Kjetil Jansrud missed the momentum and lost the line in different section. The athletes will have second chance in Lake Louise, as a Super-G is scheduled on the same track tomorrow at 11.00 local time (19.00 CET).
Source: fis-ski.com
