Attacking Vikings take opening training run in Lake Louise

After long months of training this summer and fall, the speed racers finally had their first test in World Cup race conditions on Wednesday. Cold temperatures and sunny weather provided a perfect background for the first of three official downhill training runs at the first classic of the season.

Aksel Lund Svindal tackled the course the fastest and ended his run 0.72 seconds ahead of teammate Kjetil Jansrud.

“We had really good training all summer, skiing with Kjetil of course but also with Kilde – the young guy. He is start number 60 but I think he will climb up the rankings pretty soon. So we had a lot of good training, I felt we skied good but you never really know until you hit the first training run,” commented Svindal. The Norwegian, who has won eight globes thus far in his career (two downhill, five super G, and one combined), is happy to be back after an Achilles tendon injury sidelined him last season.

“I felt solid. I definitively didn’t take it easy, I tried to do a good run. There are improvements to be done, but I’m happy to come in and see that the time is pretty good too,” concluded Svindal.

Even though Jansrud was pleased with his opening training run, he sees potential for improvement.

“I tried to ski 100 percent, but I didn’t feel like I skied as well as I could have. The first training run in the new season is always a little funky, we’ll keep on pushing in the next days,” said Jansrud. “The good thing is that we have very good conditions on the slope, the weather is nice, so this is the best downhill training we get every year. You can train as much as you want in the spring and in autumn but you still don’t get race conditions. So I think these three days will be important trainings and they will make us ready for Saturday,” added last year’s super G and downhill globe winner.

Canadian Erik Guay, who is also returning from injury, rounded out the podium 1.63 seconds behind the leader’s time. Even if he doesn’t quite trust himself just yet, the 2011 downhill World Champion was happy about today’s event.

“I had a good game plan coming in here. I wanted to ski well, feel the race speed again and just reestablish myself among the best skiers of the world and I think I executed well, but there is still some time to be made up to reach Jansrud and Svindal. But I don’t think I can be too greedy, I’m pretty happy with today. I didn’t quite trust myself. I didn’t quite trust my line and looked at the lines on the snow and followed them more than anything, but there are certainly some places that I feel like I could cut off a lot more and ski it more aggressively. That’s what I’m going to work on the next few days,” noted Guay.

As predicted by Svindal, the young Aleksander Aamodt Kilde laid down an amazing run and skied to the sixth position out of bib number 60, within two seconds of his teammate’s fastest time.

A second training is scheduled on Thursday, Nov. 26. The weather forecast looks ideal and the athletes all seem eager to correct small mistakes, adjust their lines, and go for another training in amazing conditions.

Results

Release courtesy of FIS