BEAVER CREEK, Colo. — The 2015 World Championships will feature some added star power this week as Aksel Lund Svidal and Bode Miller each confirmed they will race after Tuesday’s opening downhill training run on the Birds of Prey track.

Miller has been flirting with a World Cup start for the better part of a month, while Svindal’s season debut comes as a bit more a surprise. The Norwegian, who tore his Achilles tendon ahead of the World Cup opener in Soelden, made a public appearance in Kitzbuehel just over a week ago where he began teasing the idea of a World Championship comeback. He has been specially fitted for a new boot that has helped stabilize his footing, but he has only been back on snow for roughly a month.

Svindal finished an encouraging 11th in Tuesday’s first of three training runs.

“(Training on the Birds of Prey track) is something different than I’ve been doing lately,” Svindal said. “I’ve been cruising around easy courses, training by myself. Being back on a World Cup hill is something different. I was a little nervous. I’m not going to lie.

“The top part felt pretty good, and then the steep part I really felt like my timing was off,” added Svindal. “When the speed started picking up, I felt this isn’t something I’ve done in a long time.”

With the specially fitted boot, Svindal is skiing with almost no pain, he said, but doesn’t consider himself a medal favorite.

“I have nothing to lose. I’ll race and we’ll see what happens,” said the defending downhill gold medalist from Schladming. “I’ve been lucky to come through a lot of championships with perfect preparation and I’ve won medals. This is a time where I am unlucky with the preparation.”

Also confirming his participation in both the super G and downhill, Miller likely wouldn’t be in Beaver Creek this week if he didn’t think he had a good shot at a medal. In training, he finished 12th.

“First training run, you try to keep your eyes open, see where there is potential to make up a little more speed,” said Miller. “I got caught a couple of times out in the loose snow that they didn’t have time to move out of the way with the girls’ race. On Talon Turn, where I skied today is where I’ll probably race. But I shouldn’t have been out there because there was a foot and a half of snow.”

Shortly after the training run, Miller was confirmed as a super G starter by the U.S. Ski Team, along with Ted Ligety, Andrew Weibrecht, Travis Ganong and Steven Nyman. The Americans are awarded a fifth starter in the super G thanks to Ligety’s gold medal performance in Schladming two years ago. Jared Goldberg is the most noteworthy name to be left off the list, despite finishing sixth in downhill training Tuesday.

Said Miller, “I think between here and the training I’ve done recently, (the coaches) have confidence that I have the speed to be a viable threat for the medals. That’s why we’re all here. So I think everyone is on the same page.”

Meanwhile, Kjetil Jansrud was cool as a cucumber after laying down the fastest training pace of the day, 1 minute, 45.62 seconds on the Birds of Prey track where he dominated the speed events earlier this season. He was followed by Austria’s Max Franz and Matthias Mayer in second and third.

“I feel I skied well on the top section, especially the pitch,” said Jansrud. “But I didn’t ski very well in the middle. The confidence is still good and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. … There’s some difference (between December and February). You can’t play around too much, but there’s some offset and there’s more rolls. So I think it’s a little more exciting downhill this time around.”

In the midst of perhaps the best season of his career including his first win, Travis Ganong led the American team with the fifth fastest training run. He said he’s still playing with a couple tactics on the course.

“I’m really experimenting with my start. Every year I’ve been racing here I’ve lost the race on the top flat. So that’s my goal for these training runs, just figuring out a way to be fast up there. Today I was fast up there, so it was job done today.”

Like most other racers, Ganong reported several changes to the course compared to early December.

“The main change is coming out of the Abyss, it’s a little larger – the terrain – and there’s no gate in the landing. Harrier’s built way up, so it gives you the option if you want to risk it, you can just cut off line there and go straight into that jump. The jump is carrying huge, so it’s a risk-reward thing. It gives a little wiggle room for interpretation. … The gates don’t dictate your line, your imagination dictates your line which is what downhill should be.”

Steven Nyman, who missed a couple gates in his training run, said he was experimenting with a straighter line.

“Today I actually tried going direct in places I thought you could get away with it, mainly the top of the Brink and that was really bad, I had to throw it sideways there. I like the way the pitch runs, it actually moves quite well and you can link it together. … When you’re going off Harrier it looks like you can jump in the fence if you’re going really direct like that, and I felt like I was going to. I flew off that a lot more than I thought I would too. I’m definitely not going straight there like I planned to.”

After Wednesday’s super G race, the men are scheduled to complete their second downhill training run on Thursday.

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