Jan Hudec ended a drought with his first national title, American Chris Frank pounced on opportunity in taking the Canadian super combined title and Britt Janyk got her 15th national crown, but had to share it with 18 year old Madison McLeish.

The GMC Canadian Championships continued to roll along at Nakiska, Alberta this week with these surprising results. Hudec would hardly be a surprise Canadian winner, he owns a World Championship medal afterall, but even he was surprised he hadn’t already collected a Canadian title, and then it came in giant slalom, which isn’t exactly his forte.

Chris Frank said he was paying back for Canada’s Dustin Cook winning the U.S. National Downhill with his victory in a super G/slalom combined as the top shelf Canadians struggled with a largely unfamiliar discipline.

Janyk got her 15th national crown in the women’s super G Monday, a race she has now won five times, but this time a Prospect Group Team member, Madison McLeish surprised herself by matching the veteran with an indentical 1:04.47 clocking.

“I wasn’t expecting this when I came through the finishing line. I’m stoked,” said McLeish, a member of the Raymond James Alberta Ski Team.

“It’s very cool. Britt is a World Cup winner – she’s a fantastic skier. It feels really great to share the podium with her.”

For her part, Janyk was happy to share the title with a talented young skier.

“It was good – a really fun super-G,” said Janyk, praising the crew and volunteers who cleared the course amid heavy snowfall in the morning. “Madi is definitely a hard worker. She’s with the Prospect team and it’s really good to see someone right up top.”

Marie-Michèle Gagnon, of Lac-Etchemin, Que., followed up her win in Sunday’s super-combined with third place in the super-G. “It was generally OK,” said Gagnon, a hugely talented technical skier. “It was really fun today. I’m here to work on things – it was nice and solid.”

With several national team veterans trying their hand at a discipline they’re not used to skiing, the USA’s Chris Frank produced two solid runs to win Monday’s super combined.

Calgary’s Brad Spence (1:40.35) and Banff’s Paul Stutz (1:40.71) made up a huge amount of time in the slalom, but had weaker super-G runs and finished second and third, respectively.

“Obviously, I don’t have a whole lot of speed experience under my belt,” said Spence, 26, who had the fastest slalom run of the day (35.11). “Skiing the super-G course this morning scared the heck out of me – that’s what’s unique about the super-combined event.

“I was expecting a little bit more out of myself in the super-G, but I’m definitely happy with second place.”

Hudec, finished seventh overall after he was fastest in the super-G portion of the event and said he didn’t exactly feel at home racing slalom as the sun heated the course and the snow started to melt.

“It was painful. Painful to ski and painful to watch,” said Hudec. “I had really good slalom training the last couple of days but the conditions were different today and it completely threw me off.”

Tuesday’s GS was more to his liking. Hudec, 29, edged teammate Brad Spence by three hundredths of a second to take the victory.

“That’s shocking,” said Hudec, when informed he had just won his first national title. “I’ve been around for so long (his first national meet was 1998) I honestly thought I had won one. But I guess it’s hard to win when you are injured. It’s nice to be healthy again.”

Hudec has come back from multiple knee surgeries. He was fastest after the first run and went into the second one trying to protect a lead of just seven tenths.

“I knew I had a bit to play with but I didn’t want to just go easy, so I went out charging,” said Hudec. “I had a brutally rough run and I was all over the place, getting knocked around. I was just trying to survive. It ended up being me on top but it could have gone either way.

“I’m pretty excited to get a win in GS. I’m known more as a speed skier but I finally put two decent GS runs together. Hopefully I can build on this and start skiing giant slalom in the World Cup.”

Spence, also of Calgary, was the defending national giant slalom champion but he wasn’t bitter about losing out by such a narrow margin.

“It’s great to be here and it’s great to have another second place,” said Spence. “This year I had just about given up on GS, to be honest. The turns tend to be a little tougher on my knee. I did a few days of giant slalom skiing last week in Europe and I’m definitely happy with how things panned out.”

Third place went to Jeffrey Frisch, of Mont-Tremblant, Que., who had a combined time of 2:20.67.

“The first run was not great – I just over-skied the whole run,” said Frisch, who won the super-G on Sunday. “The second run was good – really good. I made just one major mistake.”

Frisch, who has also endured a tough run of injuries, says his performances at the GMC Canadian Championships this week prove he can still ski with the best.

“I haven’t done a lot of skiing but this shows that I’ve still got it,” said Frisch, who isn’t a member of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team and has been helped out in recent times by sponsor Sport Dinaco and a group of seven guys from the Montreal area, who have the first letter of their last names etched into a ‘DGRGCPM’ patch on his ski jacket. “I’m on the way back; I can feel it.”

Photos of Janyk and Spence by Michael Carmichael for ACA.