The first U.S. gold medal of the 2010 Olympic season went to Colby Granstrom when he claimed the win in combined at the World Junior Championships in France. Also in the medals was Canadian Kelby Halbert with bronze in the event. Silver went to Jacopo DiRonco of Italy.

Granstrom was actually the third American and fourth North American in the finish order of Thursday's (Feb. 4) downhill the rescheduled final men's event of the title meet in the Mont Blanc region of France. Halbert finished just off the podium in fourth with Americans Wiley Maple in ninth and Will Gregorian 13th. Granstrom finished 15th. That result, though, was tied to the slalom held Tuesday night when Granstrom was seventh.

The downhill gold went to Italian Mattia Casse. Silver was captured by Frederic Berthod of Austria with bronze going to Bostjan Kline of Slovenia.

"I can't believe it," said Granstrom. "I was trying for a medal in every event, but for it to actually happen - to go up and hear the national anthem - it's pretty surreal. This is when I was trying to peak and this is the race that I was looking forward to all prep period during the summer and through all those days in the gym."

Coach Tommy Eckfeldt indicated the racing was close throughout the championships with very little difference between the podium and being outside of the top 10.

"The competition at the World Junior level is extremely tight," he said. "even a small mistake here is costly, as we saw in the slalom, there was only a couple of tenths deparating almost 20 positions. It's just splitting hairs and Colby was able to maintain good quality skiing with the smallest number of mistakes to be right in there."

The men's downhill was bumped up a day by threatening weather and doubled up with the women's downhill race. Homestanding Jeromine Geroudet collected the women's downhill win by nearly a full second over Jessica DePauli of Austrian. Lotte Smiseth Sejersted of Norway got the bronze.

It was the second medal, but first gold, of the meet for Geroudet who won silver in the super G. It was the first World medal for DePauli after snagging three medals in the Austrian national junior championships last week. Sejersted won the silver medal in downhill at last season's World Junio Championship at Garmisch.

The top U.S. placing for the downhill was Julia Ford in 22nd. Devin Delaney was 35th and Vanessa Berther 44th.

Granstrom file photo by GEPA