QUEBEC SKIER ERIK GUAY HOPES TO REALIZE DREAM OF WINNING OLYMPIC MEDAL
Downhill skiing is a family affair for Olympian Erik Guay. With his father coaching the Quebec ski team and his mother working as an instructor at the Mont-Tremblant ski resort north of Montreal, it's no wonder he developed a taste for the sport.
Besides a love of skiing, Guay and his two brothers also inherited the talent that has brought them to the top ranks of the national ski team, and has the 24-year-old looking to bring home a medal from the Turin
Olympic Games.
"We're certainly a family of skiers," said Guay, who played many sports but showed the most talent on skis at a young age. "My father and my mother, who is Norwegian in origin, met while skiing in Quebec."
The bond accentuated by skiing in the family goes beyond flying down the slopes.
"When it's not working in my career, I know there is always an attentive ear for me at home," said Guay. "I personally think the involvement of parents is important in practising the sport. The presence of my younger brother, Stephane, on the team helped me too while I was on the road."
Guay enjoyed plenty of fanfare during the season, hitting three podiums in December and winning two medals in two days at Val Gardena, the same place he suffered a serious injury two years earlier.
The torn ligaments in his left knee made his return to the top a slow climb.
"My recovery lasted nine months, and last year, it took half the season before I really felt at ease again," he said. "The sports psychologist had warned me that I was going to feel a certain apprehension on my return to competition, even if I did not believe it.
"At the beginning I did not ski very well and I started to have doubts. Fortunately, my father reassured me by telling me that it would come back. Today my knee is 100 per cent and I rediscovered my aggressiveness."
Guay is not shy about his goals for Turin.
"I'm aiming at an Olympic podium," said the Mont-Tremblant skier. "Maybe that's ambitious but fourth place does not mean anything in the Games, contrary to the points we collect on the World Cup circuit. Only medals count over there.
"My approach this season was to start with a bang, to improve with each race and to arrive in Turin at the peak of my skills."
Guay is using Austrian champion Hermann Maier as his role model for the Olympics.
"I remember well the spectacular fall he took at Nagano in 1998," said Guay. "He came back in three days and won the gold medal in the super-G. That was an impressive performance."
Guay is focused on skiing right now and hasn't given much thought to what he might do after he finishes racing competitively. He does see himself working with his hands.
"I like everything to do with construction," he said. "My godfather is a contractor and it is a field that interests me. So does architecture. I was always fascinated by the idea of building something with my hands."