John Kucera became the first Canadian to win a men's World Cup ski race on home snow in 17 years by capturing the season-opening Super-G on Sunday.
The 22-year-old Kucera was the first racer out of the gate and withstood a challenge from the rest of the field to upset the heavily favored Austrians, who had been dominating the training runs all week.
Kucera finished in one minute, 29.70 seconds on the Whitehorn Mountain course to win by a wafer-thin margin of .06 seconds ahead of Austria's Mario Scheiber (1:29.76) with Swede Patrik Jaerbyn third at 1:29.98.
PHOTO: AP
"It hasn't sunk in," said Kucera, who had all his family and friends watching in the grandstand. "I was really relaxed at the start. I just focused on what I needed to do. I skied strong and I am happy."
Kucera became the first Canadian racer to win at Lake Louise and only the second in history behind Rob Boyd to win a World Cup race in Canada. Boyd won a downhill in Whistler in 1989.
Kucera braved chilly temperatures of minus 25oC to fly down the 2.51km course and win US$23,000. Scheiber collected US$15,000 for second place and Jaerbyn grabbed US$11,000 for third.
Kucera's win, coupled with Canadian Manuel Osborne-Paradis' second-place finish in Sat-urday's downhill, brought back memories of the glory days of the "Crazy Canucks" in the 1980s.
"It is an amazing feeling. We had two guys on podium in two days. Our team is strong and coming along," Kucera said.
Scheiber, 23, is in his fourth season on the World Cup circuit. His best previous Super-G finish was a third in Beaver Creek in 2004 and he placed seventh in the Lake Louise Super-G two years ago.
"It was a great competition. Conditions were perfect," Scheiber said. "It was an excellent run or I would not be on the podium. I am really happy about the way I skied."
At 37, Jaerbyn was the oldest skier in Sunday's race. He has been on the circuit since 1992 and is still seeking his first career victory. He has one World Championship medal -- a silver in the Super-G in 1996.
"It was fine. The visibility was decent," Jaerbyn said. "You don't feel the cold until you come through finish line and you stop and then you take your boots."
It was a disappointing weekend for the Austrians, who took just two of the top nine spots on Sunday after being held off the podium for the first time here in Saturday's downhill.
Two-time Olympic champion Hermann Maier finished fourth in 1:30.16 while reigning World Cup overall champ Benjamin Raich, also of Austria, finished 10th in 1:30.65.
Liechtenstein's Mario Buechel became the oldest man to win a World Cup downhill on Saturday but he looked his 35 years on Sunday by finishing in 21st.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later