On another difficult day for Whistler's racers on the Canadian ski team, Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal conquered the challenging super G course in Creekside to add to his Olympic medal haul on a sunny Friday afternoon (Feb. 19).
Svindal, the two-time World Cup overall champion, handled the tough and fast Dave Murray Downhill course to add super G gold to his silver from Monday's (Feb. 15) men's downhill race.
"I knew I was going to take risks. At the start I thought, 'Put a smile on your face, you already have a sliver. Go for the gold and see what happens,'" Svindal said.
A pair of Americans followed the World Cup super G and overall champion onto the podium, with the surging Bode Miller claiming the silver medal and the unheralded Andrew Weibrecht winning bronze.
Miller won his fourth Olympic medal and became the fifth skier to medal in four disciplines, while Olympic rookie Weibrecht, whose previous best finish was a 10th-place result on the World Cup circuit in Beaver Creek in 2007, took advantage of his early start in the event to ski a blistering run.
"To be able to stand on the podium with the two best skiers of our generation is an incredible feeling. It's something I'll always remember and cherish," Weibrecht said.
Erik Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., missed out on a podium spot by just three hundredths of a second, and his time of one minute, 30.68 seconds put him just 34 hundredths of a second slower than Svindal as he finished fifth behind Italy's Werner Heel.
Guay, who finished fourth in the 2006 Olympic super G race and has racked up a string of 16 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place results on the World Cup circuit in recent years, said it was particularly tough this time to be so close to the podium and yet not on it.
"Today is harder than most. To be three hundredths from third place, and six hundredths from second place, it's tough to swallow. I know that mistake up top probably cost me three tenths. It was in my grasp. It was there today," Guay said.
Whistler Mountain Ski Club alumni Manuel Osborne-Paradis and Robbie Dixon came out charging and attacked the Dave Murray Downhill run that is so familiar to them, but Osborne-Paradis crashed off the course and Dixon skied out early in his run.
"There's only three spots that count here, and there's only one way to do it, it's all or nothing. (But) I'm definitely very thankful, very grateful, for this opportunity, racing at home in my backyard, in front of friends and family and my whole country," Dixon said, looking for the bright spots in his first Olympic experience even though he found himself "really frustrated" on Friday.
Osborne-Paradis came into the Olympic races with many eyes firmly fixed upon him as a favourite. He's been having a banner year on the World Cup circuit having won two races already this season, including the super G race at Lake Louise and he looked primed to challenge for gold on the hill he grew up skiing. But the Olympic medals eluded the speed-loving skier's grasp.
"I'm really disappointed, but I've had worse weekends than this. I've had back-to-back downhills where I haven't finished; I've had lots of things; it's tough to say, because everybody always does it, but you just have to take everything that you could possibly learn out of each situation and make it better for the next week," Osborne-Paradis said.
Calgary's Jan Hudec put down a solid run from his late start in the 32nd spot, finishing 23rd with a time of 1:32.09.
The Canadian skiers didn't shy away from sharing their disappointment in coming away from the men's speed races without any medals. The expectations that had been heaped on them were warranted, Osborne-Paradis and Dixon said, but somehow they couldn't make the medals appear.
"I think those expectations were legit, they weren't far-fetched. We had the tools, we had the coaching staff and everything The fact that we came away empty-handed, it's hard to swallow. It sucks. I know we're all pretty disappointed right now. (But) it's racing, s--- happens, it can go either way," Dixon said.
The event included several crashes, including a major spill by Sweden's Patrick Jaerbyn that resulted in a long hold as the helicopter came in to lift him off the mountain. Guay and Hudec offered ringing endorsements of the challenging track and Hudec said the European skiers seemed to like it too.
"It was the hardest super G on the World Cup, no question. And I think that's what they need to do the best guy wins the hardest course," Guay said.
The Americans are obviously feeling strong on the Whistler courses. The medals for Miller and Weibrecht marked a new record for their country's alpine team, giving the group six Olympic medals to better the previous total of five, set at the 1984 Games, with lots more skiing to come in Whistler.
