GUAY GETS HIS SHOT TO SHINE
Erik Guay has two objectives for alpine skiing's World Cup season: to stay healthy and win a race. The trouble is, he's not sure which is more ambitious. Staying injury-free isn't easy in a sport where you race downhill on an icy tightrope at more than 100 kilometres an hour. And yet if you don't push yourself to the brink of mayhem, you don't win. So what's a skier to do?
As Canada's top downhiller, Guay believes he figured it out this past summer when he backed off in training. By backing off, Guay didn't sit in the chalet and sip a chardonnay for hours. What he did was ease up on taking risks during practice sessions in Chile and British Columbia. Instead of flying through danger spots, he slowed down and took a more calculated approach so he could save his all-out efforts for race day.
It may prove the best course of action for a skier whose promising career has been pockmarked by frustration.
"Winning a race is one of my top priorities," said Guay, who will compete this weekend at the Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart men's World Cup event, where he is the only Canadian to have made it to the medal podium. "I've been close, but not quite there. I want to improve my results, improve my ranking. I want to be a competitor and a favourite heading into 2010 [the Vancouver Winter Olympics]."
Guay, now 25 years old and more polished, was second in the 2003 downhill held at the Alberta ski resort. Before that, he scored two sixth-place finishes at the world championships. Alpine Canada held its breath, expecting the native of Mont-Tremblant, Que., to explode with a win at any moment. What exploded was Guay's left knee, which required reconstructive surgery for an anterior cruciate ligament gone to shreds.
While the rehabilitation was arduous, Guay worked his way back with stunning success. Last December, he fashioned a string of three podium finishes, twice placing second in a super giant slalom and third in a downhill. Once again, Alpine Canada held its breath, hoping Guay would be up to speed for his first Winter Olympics, in Turin. He never got into the starting hut for the downhill. The left knee got him again.
"It was sore and inflamed where the fibula head attaches [just beneath the knee]," Guay said. "I was training after Kitzbuhel and it was just bad timing. There was nothing I could do about it."
Actually, there was. Guay rested, then took a run at the Turin super G, which offered more turns at slower speeds than the hell-bent downhill. Lo and behold, the Olympic rookie was good enough to place fourth behind Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway, Hermann Maier of Austria and Ambrosi Hoffman of Switzerland. His time compared with Hoffman's? A mere 0.01 seconds slower.
"I was quite happy with finishing fourth," said Guay, who helped the Canadian ski team leave Italy with a sense of optimism. "[Being injured] wasn't the easiest way to get ready for the run, but I was excited. I'd love to be one-tenth of a second faster and I'm working on that."
Guay knows the time is now to establish himself as a World Cup winner. Physically, he is raring to go. Mentally, he is relaxed and confident. Arguably, the best thing for Guay is that he is surrounded by promising teammates eager to make their mark on what is hailed as the winter circus. That sense of camaraderie and competition within the ranks has many at Alpine Canada, including Canadian alpine ski team director Dusan Grasic, expecting more than the occasional good result.
"We've had excellent training and the athletes are ready," Grasic said in a recent interview at the team's B.C. training camp atop the Farnham Glacier. "To ski with the best countries in the world, we have to be consistent and we have to show that [beginning at Lake Louise]."
Having stood second and third on the medal podium, Guay is eyeing the top rung on a home hill that has never been the most difficult on the circuit. Asked for his thoughts on the course and conditions, Guay spoke more about the opportunity to start things on the right foot. It's an opportunity he has been saving himself for since August.
"I didn't want to take it crazy in the summer," he said. "It wasn't as important to take risks in training. Race day is the time to do so."
And race day is about to arrive.