CANADIAN PAIR ON PODIUM
World Cup Downhill: Guay, Osborne-Paradis crank up the speed
They've always been regarded as nice guys.
A friendly bunch who got along well together and toured the World Cup circuit in a non-threatening, maple-leaf-on-the-backpack, kind of way.
Well, that's changing.
Now Canada's men's alpine team is nice and scary. Now it's become a team to be respected and feared.
Saturday at Val d'Isere, France, Erik Guay and Manuel Osborne-Paradis teamed to do something no Canadian men had done in 13 years. They stood on the same World Cup podium.
Guay, from Mont-Tremblant, Que., was second and North Vancouver's Osborne-Paradis third in a downhill. The last time a podium had room for two Canucks was Jan. 6, 1994, when Edi Podivinsky and Cary Mullen delivered a 1-2 punch in a downhill at Saalbach, Austria.
Genevieve Simard and Nanaimo's Allison Forsyth finished second and third at Santa Caterina, Italy, in a giant slalom on Jan. 8, 2005.
And as the pile of podiums grows -- those were the sixth and seventh this season for the Canadian men -- so too does the reputation.
"We've always been a really nice team and people have talked to us and been our friends but they haven't really feared us or dealt with us with more respect," said Osborne-Paradis, 22, who finished the 3.15 km Oreiller Killy course with a time of one minute, 56.69 seconds, just 0.06 back of Guay and 0.32 behind race winner Pierre Emmanuel Dalcin of France.
"The Austrians, they talk about us a lot more now and they talk with us," continued Osborne-Paradis, who also finished second in a World Cup downhill at Lake Louise in November. "At (course) inspections they figure out lines with us and they wouldn't have done that before if you're not doing that well.
"Now that we're more in the spotlight, there are a lot of teams that envy us just because of the camaraderie within our team."
That Canadian camaraderie was evident Saturday as the champagne corks flew in the finish area.
"The champagne, it's fun," said Osborne-Paradis. "It's nice that it was cheap because it was all over everybody."
Guay and Osborne-Paradis, who started 17th and 16th, had to wait and watch the rest of the field finish before they knew they were on the podium.
"I was standing there and there was only one guy coming down who could bump me off (Austria's Michael Walchhofer, finished 21st) and it was nerve wracking," Osborne-Paradis continued. "Erik and Dusan (Dusan Grasic, team alpine director) were celebrating already as he came down. I was biting my teeth and everybody's cheering and I was like, 'I can't cheer yet, shut up."
"There was definitely some cheering and some champagne and a celebration in the finish," said Guay. "I was telling Manny that it's more stressful being in the finish area watching the guys come down than being in the starter's hut. We were sitting in the hot seat there for a while watching the good guys come down and just kind of sending mind bullets to them to help them slow down a little bit."
OK, so they're not always nice guys. But they are fast. And fast is fun.