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Canadians continue to improve

Grandi, Cousineau top-15 in GS; Guay, Lavoie top-30 in downhill Thomas Grandi is on a roll these days. A week ago the 30-year-old from Canmore, Alberta, finished ninth in a slalom, his best World Cup result in the discipline in three seasons.

Grandi, Cousineau top-15 in GS; Guay, Lavoie top-30 in downhill

Thomas Grandi is on a roll these days. A week ago the 30-year-old from Canmore, Alberta, finished ninth in a slalom, his best World Cup result in the discipline in three seasons. Although he failed to qualify for the slalom this past weekend on a challenging course that claimed dozens of racers, he made up for it on Jan. 14 with a 10th-place finish in the classic giant slalom at Adelboden, Switzerland.

Although he has yet to land on the podium this season, Grandi is now only one of eight racers to score World Cup points in every GS race this season.

Adding to the excitement for Canada, Julien Cousineau of Lachute, Quebec, a rookie with the team, collected his first ever World Cup points with a 12 th place finish, moving up 10 spots after his first run.

"Cousi’s the big news today, what a guy," said Grandi. "If Julien’s first finish is any indication of future success, he’s going to be great. With J.P. (Roy) coming back soon and Ryan (Semple) close to qualifying, the team is looking good."

Some 20,000 alpine race fans lined the course, and cheered on the athletes as they made their way down the icy, treacherous slope at Adelboden, which has been an annual stop on the men’s World Cup circuit since the days of Jean-Claude Killy. Among the competitors was Austrian Hermann Maier, making a comeback after almost losing a leg in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Maier finished 31 st , just failing to qualify for the second run by .05 seconds.

When he finished his second run, Cousineau was in second place. Grandi took over as leader one racer later. Their reign at the top was short-lived, however, as the top skiers on the circuit made their second runs.

"I believe I really belong here in the top-30," said Cousineau, who qualified for the World Championships with his result. "I was right there with Thomas and J.P. in training and the Nor Ams gave me confidence to be winning again. Two good runs in a row here is not a fluke. You have to be on the edge here, but one little mistake can cost you everything."

He wasn’t exaggerating. Some 19 out of 63 starters didn’t finish the first run, and seven other racers went off-course on the second run, including first run leader Didier Cuche of Switzerland and Benjamin Raich of Austria.

Meanwhile, the young Canadian men’s ski team is continuing to improve on its World Cup results. They have yet to put a skier on the podium, but the season has not been without its bright spots.

The first is unquestionably the consistent improvement of 22-year-old Erik Guay of Mont Tremblant, Quebec.

In the men’s downhill at Bormio, Italy on Saturday, Jan. 11, Guay, who is consistently fast in training, stepped up his game in the competition to finish 20 th overall – the national team rookie’s best World Cup result this season.

"I’m pretty happy with the result," he said. "We had tough conditions again – very icy, very long, very bumpy."

Guay’s time of two minutes, 1.57 seconds was just 2.3 seconds off the lead time of 1:59.27 set by Stephan Eberharter of Austria, the most dominant racer on the circuit with six first place finishes this season. Teammate Michael Walchhofer was second in 1:59.75, and Daron Rahlves of the U.S. was third in 2:00.04.

Another bright spot for Canada is the resurgent Vincent Lavoie of Cap Rouge, Quebec, who returned to the circuit after being injured for the past two seasons.

Lavoie, 25, finished the day in 30 th after starting from the 52 nd position, earning his first points since he returned to skiing. Although it’s been a while since Canada put two skiers in the top-30, Lavoie’s real achievement on Saturday was the testament to his endurance – Lavoie actually had to race the top half of the physically demanding course twice.

Lavoie was held up initially at the start gate by a crash on the course. When he was finally cleared to go and on course, officials noticed a problem with the course as a result of the crash, and stopped Lavoie at the halfway point.

Although he got to check out the course, the first attempt drained a lot of his energy.

"This is one of the toughest courses on the legs," he said. "I lost time at the bottom because my legs got pretty tired. I’m happy I managed to pull a top-30 because the course was getting tougher at the back."

Another bright spot on the team is Whistler’s Jeff Hume.

Hume, 23, finished in 49 th spot, but has caught the attention of coaches with his aggressiveness. It seems he would rather crash or make a mistake and finish at the back of the pack than play it safe and finish somewhere in the middle. In some races he did not finish, he posted some of the fastest split-times before going off course.

The tactic has yet to pay off, but the coaches are confident that it will.

In the slalom on the following day, Cousineau and Grandi did not qualify for a second run.

That race went to Ivica Kostelic of Croatia, the brother of the women’s tour leader, Janica. Bode Miller of the U.S. was second, followed by Hans-Petter Buraas of Norway in third.

The men’s team will race again this weekend in the World Cup slalom and downhill events at Wengen, Switzerland.