After their first look at the 2018 Olympic venue in Jeongseon, South Korea, the men’s World Cup speed tour headed back to Europe where they will remain through the end of the season. Training runs in Chamonix, France, were held on Wednesday and Thursday in preparation for alpine combined and downhill races this Friday and Saturday.

New snowfall caused some inconsistent conditions for the first training day, but organizers have reportedly been able to make a much more consistent surface heading into the weekend’s races.

In Wednesday’s training, a tight results sheet was topped by Frenchman Guillermo Fayed, who clocked in with a time of 1:59.11 seconds, just 0.02 seconds ahead of Austria’s Hannes Reichelt. In fact, the top five places in Wednesday’s training were separated by only 0.08 seconds.

“Of course, I know the slope very well,” said Fayed. “But the course setting has changed a little compared to 2011 and 2012, so today I also had to test out the new course. My run was solid, we spent lots of time on the technical parts of the ‘Rocher Blanc’ in the last days, which allows us to get the right timing, but for the rest it’s the same for everybody. I pushed hard today because in the last races sometimes I took it too easy during the trainings and then I wasn’t confident enough on race day.”

It was a different story for Thursday’s training run as overnight course work provided athletes with a smooth, hard surface from top to bottom, allowing athletes to ski the line they wanted from inspection. Although missing two gates during his run, young Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr set the pace on Thursday with a time of 1:57.59 seconds.

“It’s a pitty,” said Kriechmayr. “It should not happen that I miss gates. But fortunately it’s training and I hope it won’t happen tomorrow. The course is much better than yesterday, the organizing committee did a great job. Now I hope the weather is good on Friday and Saturday and we’ll have great races.”

Following Kreichmayr in second was American Steven Nyman with a time of 1:57.73 seconds, making him the fastest racer to complete the course in its entirety.

“Today, the hill prep was much better,” explained Nyman. “They cleaned off the soft snow, so you can actually ski the line you have envisioned. Yesterday, I was overthinking some sections and after reviewing video, I knew which areas I had to fix and that’s what I did today. I skied fairly well all the way down, especially the lower part, and I didn’t have big mistakes, so that’s good.”

Racing action in Chamonix kicks off on Friday with the alpine combined. The downhill run is set to start at 10:30 a.m. CET, with the slalom run scheduled for 2:00 p.m. CET.

Friday’s results will also determine the alpine combined discipline crystal globe winner, as there are no more combined events on the schedule for the remainder of the season. Currently, Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud and France’s Alexis Pinturault are tied at the top of the standings with 120 points each, although there are numerous racers with a mathematical chance at taking the title just behind them.

Official Results Training 1

Official Results Training 2