Garmisch: Cuche opens training on top

Swiss Didier Cuche led Frenchman Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin and Austrian Georg Streitberger by less than two tenths of a second to take the best time of the opening training run for a World Cup downhill at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.Swiss Didier Cuche led Frenchman Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin and Austrian Georg Streitberger by less than two tenths of a second to take the best time of the opening training run for a World Cup downhill at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Garmisch will host both the men – for a downhill Saturday and slalom Sunday – and the women – for a super G Saturday and a slalom Friday – in a rare gathering of the genders ahead of the kick-off for the World Ski Championships beginning at Val d’Isere, France. The first title event is women’s super G, Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Cuche was just .11 of a second ahead of Dalcin and .17 in front of Streitberger. Aksel Lund Svindal in fourth was .33 back in a relatively close run.

The Canadians had some results to speak of with Robbie Dixon in seventh, Jan Hudec 13th and Erik Guay 14th. The top U.S. skier on the day was Erik Fisher in 15th, 1.8 seconds back.