Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Erik Guay - Downhill World Champion

Originally published on My Life Is Like A Song on February 15, 2011

Erik Guay has added another achievement to his resume: World Downhill Champion. On the weekend, he won the downhill at the World Championships.

Last year he won the the overall Super-G title. I wrote about that here and then when I met him, I wrote about that experience here. The only thing missing on his resume now is an Olympic medal.

The World Championships are held every two years. In 2009, Didier Cuche was second to a different Canadian: Jon Kucera. When I met him this past fall (with Erik Guay), I posted his winning run. You can see it here. With Kucera still not recovered from his broken leg, it left Guay and the rest of the Canadian team to try to defend his title.

Erik Guay did just that with a superb run:



He was 10th out of the start gate. Christof Innerhofer had raced just before him beating the previous best time by more than 1 second. Guay beat his time by 0.76 seconds. Then he waited as the world's other top skiers each had a turn to beat his time. Didier Cuche was the only one who got close. He finished second three tenths of a second behind.

I'm thankful that it was televised even if it was one day later. It was great to see Erik at the top of the podium singing O Canada.

Congratulations to Erik and best of luck in his quest for an Olympic medal!!

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