Are: Bourque paces Canada, preps for DH

ARE, Sweden — Canada’s Francois Bourque is quietly putting together a pretty impressive career record in World Championships races.
ARE, Sweden — Canada’s Francois Bourque is quietly putting together a pretty impressive career record in World Championships races.
    The 22-year-old known primarily for his considerable skills in giant slalom is getting up to speed in the fastest event on snow, the downhill. Bourque finished 18th in the super combined Thursday but sat fifth after the downhill run. A few problems in the afternoon slalom run dashed Bourque’s dreams of a medal in the event, but he now has four top-20 finishes in five races at worlds in his career. He finished 10th in combined and 13th in super G two years ago in Bormio and jumped into the top 10 with a ninth-place result earlier this week in the super G in Are.
    “For sure I’m a bit disappointed, but I had some really good feeling on the downhill track and [Friday] is the last training run, which is the qualification for me for the spot in Saturday’s downhill,” Bourque said. “It was good to do the race today. We have some little things to fix for [Friday] and we’ll be in the good shape for Saturday.”
    The super combined is being contested at worlds for the first time this year. The traditional combined had always been run previously. That format features one downhill run and two runs of slalom while the super combi has just one slalom run. The idea is to allow traditional downhillers to be more competitive with slalom experts, but Bourque said slalom runners still maintain an advantage.
    “All the [super combined] races this year have been won by more slalom skiers than downhillers. I think coming in with some good slalom skills you’ll have a bigger advantage than downhillers.
    “It’s much harder to be three seconds out in the downhill than in the slalom. If you’re a good slalom skier you can make up three seconds pretty easy compared to in downhill, so that’s the way it is. So if we want to be more competitive, we should train more slalom.”
    Bourque said he hadn’t had enough slalom training to be competitive Thursday. He clocked just the 25th-fastest time in the slalom run but his 18th-place finish was the third-best among North American racers (Bode Miller sixth, Steven Nyman ninth) and the best by Canada. Slalom specialists Ryan Semple (20th) and Mike Janyk (23rd), and speedster John Kucera (34th) rounded out Canada’s finishers.
    Bourque also is rounding into one of Canada’s best all-rounders this season on the World Cup. Ranked 28th overall, he’s in the top 10 in GS and top 30 in both super G and combined. He’s admittedly struggled in downhill but is hoping to change that this week. Bourque, Jan Hudec, Kucera, Erik Guay and Manny Osborne-Paradis will battle for the four starting spots in downhill in Friday’s training run.
    “It’s a good track. I had some good results last year here in the [World Cup] Finals as well,” Bourque said. “Erik and Manny have been on the podium [in downhill] this year, so I know they have some good expectations. Myself, I haven’t done that well in downhill but what I’ve seen [of the course] is pretty good. I’ll take [Saturday’s race] like training runs and maybe then I’ll have a better shot."