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Guay fourth, Janyk back in the points at Wengen

Canada's Erik Guay was close to his second World Cup podium of the season in the famously long downhill at Wengen, Switzerland on Saturday, placing fourth overall. "I'm pretty satisfied with this," he said.
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Canada's Erik Guay was close to his second World Cup podium of the season in the famously long downhill at Wengen, Switzerland on Saturday, placing fourth overall.

"I'm pretty satisfied with this," he said. "You always want the podium when you are fourth but my best previous result here was when I was eighth last year. I had a good, solid run and I skied really well."

Christof Innherhofer of Italy took the win, followed by Austrians Klaus Kroell and Hannes Reichelt. Canadians Benjamin Thomsen and Jan Hudec were 12th and 16th respectively, while John Kucera finished in 46th place.

The Lauberhorn downhill course at Wengen is the longest on the tour with a total length of 4.455km and run times around two-and-a-half minutes — about 30-40 seconds longer than most races. It's also fast with top speeds of 160km/h in one section and has one of the longest and most spectacular jumps of any downhill course.

"Wengen is definitely not a track for me," said Thomsen. "You saw that at the top when I was about a second out. I've been working hard on my gliding but I need to keep working on it. I'm really happy with the way the rest of the run went. I stuck to my guns and pushed to the limit."

There was a combined race before the downhill, but no Canadians took part. Alexis Pinturault of France was first, followed by Ivica Kostelic of Croatia and Carlo Janka of Switzerland.

After the downhill, Wengen hosted a slalom race on Sunday. While none of the Canadians were a factor in that event, Whistler's Mike Janyk shook off a string of "Did Not Finish" results due to straddled gates and other issues to place 26th.

Felix Neureuther of Germany was first, followed by Marcel Hirscher of Austria and Ivica Kostelic of Croatia.

The women's speed team, which has been struggling as well with the retirement of three top athletes in recent years, was in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy for two events last weekend. Larisa Yurkiw was 43rd in the downhill. Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. took the win, followed by Tina Maze of Slovenia and Leanne Smith of the U.S.

Yurkiw was 42nd in the super G as well. Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany was first, followed by Nicole Schmidhofer of Austria and Tina Maze.

Maze is the top story on the World Cup circuit this season with 16 podium appearances so far, spread out over every discipline. She now has almost twice as many points in the overall standings as any other racer, and is ranked first in GS, super G and combined, second in slalom and third in downhill.