Canada's Erik Guay posted a solid fifth-place finish in one of the premier events of the Winter Olympics on Monday (Feb. 15), a day that belonged to Switzerland's Didier DeFago, generally regarded as only the second-best downhiller named Didier on the Swiss team.
DeFago, whose teammate Didier Cuche leads the World Cup men's downhill points standings, said he had an inkling that he would do well when he saw the conditions on the Dave Murray Downhill track on Monday morning high clouds, with somewhat soft conditions on the top third of the course.
"It (the course) has changed a lot since training, but the conditions were perfect for me," said DeFago, who posted a time of one minute, 54.31 seconds to edge Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal by seven hundredths of a second. "I knew I would do well, but I never expected to do this well."
DeFago, ranked sixth in the World Cup downhill standings, had a best previous Olympic finish of sixth in the super G in 2002.
Bode Miller, the cocky American who has no World Cup downhill podium finishes this season, came through when it counted, capturing the bronze medal by finishing nine hundredths behind DeFago. It was Miller's first Olympic medal in the downhill; he won silvers in both the giant slalom and combined in 2002.
Guay, who served notice that he was on track by posting the third best time in Thursday's (Feb. 11) downhill training run, finished 27 hundredths of a second off the podium, behind fourth-place Mario Scheiber of Austria.
Guay said he was pleased with his run despite some problems seeing near the top of the course.
"The light's kind of flat up there, and if you can see those holes and move with them, you'll carry a lot more speed down toward the bottom," Guay said. "I'm happy with my run, happy how I did. I didn't see that well up top, but my body feels good, and I'm happy. I gave it my best shot."
Manuel Osborne-Paradis, regarded as Canada's best hope for a medal coming into the race, with two World Cup victories this season, had a promising start, matching DeFago's time at the second interval split. But he lost time when he had what he called a "bobble" going around the turn known as Coaches' Corner and wound up 17th.
Whistler's Robbie Dixon had an even more disappointing result, losing some time when he hit a gate about 15 seconds into the race. He then skied such an aggressive line going over the drop known as Fall Away, just past the course's halfway point, that he lost control and crashed. Fortunately, he was not injured and said he plans to go for gold again in the super G on Friday (Feb. 19).
Dixon said with a laugh that he "knew that that was not the winning ticket" when he hit the gate. After that, he said, "I tried to pin it the rest of the way down and that was definitely the wrong approach."
Of his crash, Dixon said, "I just took a way too aggressive line and couldn't hold it. I hit that second little bump on Fall Away and it just kind of got me and threw me off guard and that was it."
Both skiers were philosophical about their races, saying that if you want to be on the podium, you have to take chances.
"I knew along that I'd either be standing on the podium or I'd be pretty far away from the podium," said Osborne-Paradis, the Whistler Mountain Ski Club alumnus. "And that's pretty much what happened there.
"I was tied with DeFago at one point and then I just lost it. At Coaches' Corner I came through there and I wasn't able to hold onto the turn the way I wanted. I think I took a really good line into there, but there were a couple bumps that almost high-sided me and that's the end of the race. That was all the speed you needed for the traverse.
"As soon as I kind of bobbled there, my day was over."
Canadian Jan Hudec finished 25th.
