US women aim high after strong Lake Louise training performance

Weather began to clear towards the end of inspection for the third and final downhill training run in Lake Louise, Alberta, and the U.S. Ski Team capitalized on the improved conditions and laid down strong performances ahead of the opening speed races of the 2017 women’s World Cup season.

Alice McKennis, Laurenne Ross, Stacey Cook, and Jaqueline Wiles went second, third, fourth, and sixth, respectively, in the training run won by Austrian Ramona Siebenhofer with a time of 1:46.84 seconds.

“It’s prime. It’s perfect,” Ross said of the conditions. “This is exactly what we want to race on. There are a few bumps here and there, but it’s really nothing compared to years past that we’ve seen. The snow is good, hard, and grippy. It’s a lot of fun.”

Wiles has enjoyed a string of strong training results over the past days and is looking forward to making her mark on the World Cup this season.

“The course is really fun this year,” she said. “It’s kind of more of a charging course; a couple of places where you can really attack it and I’m really enjoying this track so far. Going into the race now, I just need to stay focused and not do too much, just do what I have been doing, stay focused, and just charge it as much as I can.”

The first downhill in Lake Louise kicks off at 12:30 pm MT on Friday with Mikaela Shiffrin set to make her World Cup downhill debut.

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