Lenzerheide notebook: Guay eyes future overall

With one Canadian set to retire — Thomas Grandi — another is hoping to emerge as an overall threat in coming seasons.
LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — With one Canadian set to retire — Thomas Grandi — another is hoping to emerge as an overall threat in coming seasons.
    Erik Guay scored major points in four of his last five World Cup downhills to vault into third in the final standings. He placed third in the season-ending super G at Lenzerheide. Next season, the mild-mannered Canadian will look to add a third discipline to his scoring repertoire.
    “I’d like to ski more GS next year. I’m not going to do slalom … forget about that, but giant slalom for sure.”
    He’s not yet thinking about his summer training regimen, though.
    “Not yet, I’m still thinking about golf right now,” Guay said after tying for third in his super G heat in the nations team event. “For next year, I want to get some more victories. I only have one under my belt, so I guess I’ll be aiming for that. I finished third in the overall downhill this year — I’d like to improve on that.”
    Guay lamented another missed opportunity for the Canadian team to podium in the team event Friday.
    “I wasn’t really happy with my run. I couldn’t really get it going the way I wanted to like yesterday. But we still got some points there,” he said.
    Guay, in ninth, led three Canadian men into the top 25 of the overall standings, with John Kucera 22nd and Francois Bourque 23rd. Manny Osborne-Paradis was 12th in the downhill standings. Guay said the season has gone significantly better than the team had hoped.
     “Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s been a lot better,” Guay said. “A lot of guys didn’t expect to get medals this year. Johnny came through and finished third [overall] in super G and Manny’s put down some solid results, good podium finishes.
    “We’ve been together for quite a while. Our team has been progressing for a few years and getting better and better. This year was just a breakthrough year where we got those podium finishes we needed.”
    Like many of the speed racers, Guay reacted negatively to FIS discussions about dropping super G from the World Cup calendar.
    “I think that’s crap,” Guay said. “I can’t believe they would do that. If anything they should get rid of the super combi. It’s just a confusing event, people don’t like watching it. Super G is such a cool event — you get one go at it, one inspection, then you go for it.”
    TITLE TIME: What’s up for grabs this weekend? The big titles, of course, with Austrians Marlies Schild and Benni Raich poised to win the overall championships — though Aksel Lund Svindal, Nicole Hosp and, with a ton of good fortune, Julia Mancuso — will have a say. In addition, three of the four remaining discipline globes will be decided.
    On the men’s side, four skiers are in contention for the giant slalom crown. Raich is on a two-race GS win streak (Adelboden, Kranjska Gora) but he leads Svindal by just three points, 319-316. Italy’s Max Blardone (300) and Kalle Palander of Finland (259) also are capable of winning the title. Ted Ligety is the top American in sixth and could finish as high as third in the standings.
    In slalom, Raich trails teammate Mario Matt by 15 points. Matt is on his own two-race win streak in slalom. Sweden’s Jens Byggmark has 445 points. Ligety again is the top U.S. racer. A win Sunday and poor results from the frontrunners might be enough to push Ligety as high as eighth.
    Schild has wrapped up the slalom title, as she stands an unfathomable 395 points ahead of second-place racer Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic. Resi Stiegler in 16th is the top American, with a slim chance of moving into the  top 10 in the season rankings.
    Three racers are in the hunt for the women’s GS title — Hosp, Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen and Austrian Michaela Kirchgasser. Hosp has 390 points, 16 better than the Finn and 93 ahead of Kirchgasser.
    Austria has again clinched the Nations Cup standings. For the first time since the 2002-03 season, the Swiss will land in second and the U.S. team will drop to third or fourth. Italy currently trails the U.S. team by 212 points for third place.
    The United States was third in 2004 before moving up to second the next two seasons.
    The men’s Nations Cup rankings are solid, with Austria first followed by Switzerland, Italy, Canada and the United States. The women’s Nations Cup field is topped by Austria, with the U.S. women locked into second, Sweden third and Italy fourth.
    FORECAST: Saturday is expected to be sunny with some low clouds, possible snow flurries Saturday night. Sunday, the final day of the World Cup season, is forecast to be partly cloudy, windy and dry, with snow headed to the Alps on Monday.