Worlds: Canadian Kucera claims downhill

Back in the day of the Crazy Canucks, reporters use to talk about the “Canadian line,” usually a more daring attack. It was hard to tell if the Canadians had scoped a better path down the odd Bellevarde course at Val d’Isere, because only one of them finished. But the one who did, won.

John Kucera finished first in the World Championship downhill Saturday to become Canada’s first ever male World Champion in any alpine skiing discipline. 

The Swiss took the next two places for the awards platform finishes, Didier Cuche getting his second medal of the championships with silver, a scant .04 off the pace and Carlo Janka earned the bronze. But the gold will go home to Canada.

Back in the day of the Crazy Canucks, reporters use to talk about the “Canadian line,” usually a more daring attack. It was hard to tell if the Canadians had scoped a better path down the odd Bellevarde course at Val d’Isere, because only one of them finished. But the one who did, won.

John Kucera finished first in the World Championship downhill Saturday to become Canada’s first ever male World Champion in any alpine skiing discipline. 

The Swiss took the next two places for the awards platform finishes, Didier Cuche getting his second medal of the championships with silver, a scant .04 off the pace and Carlo Janka earned the bronze. But the gold will go home to Canada.

News reports will say the race was marred by fog. Not true. Really they were clouds that drifted up the valley a few hundred yards lower than the 2800m peak of Bellevarde Mountain. No doubt the clouds played a roll, but frankly, the Bellevarde course is only a downhill track for about the top third. From there, from the point it filters through the huge boulders that help make it scenically spectacular, it ceases to be a downhiller’s course and becomes something for more technically oriented racers.

Don’t take anything away from Kucera. He earned every bit of adulation he will, can or should get with a gutsy, precise attack. And then he waited, cameras trained on his every move, while dozens of skiers beat his early split times, through weather and crash delays and even a provisional rerun granted to the World Cup downhill leader. “That,” he said, “was nerve wracking.”

Particularly since it took forever. The race lasted much longer than the brief 38-racer start list indicated it should have. Ten skiers failed to finish and others probably wished they hadn’t after struggling mightily to make all the gates. Other struggled just to see them in the clouds and officials eventually declared a stoppage to wait out the sun.

Kucera was the second racer out of the start house and he started in perfectly clear conditions, plenty of sunshine and only a minor breeze. There are only so many places on the tight course where there is even a choice of line, but he seemed to find every one of them, trashing the time of the first skier on course, Austrian hero Hermann Maier, by more than a second.

It wasn’t until Janka, in bib six, that there was any challenge to the Canadian’s time. But Janka hit the first pocket of cloud on the day. Those who followed found cloud in varying degrees of thickness and in various locations, making course reports pretty difficult to depend on.

Adding to the emotional discomfort of the man on top of the finish order was that his time to the early intermediate timers kept getting beat.

Cuche held a significant lead, Erik Guay, Klaus Kroell, indeed it seemed almost everybody put some degree of green on the timing reports. Even after the race was halted to let the clouds pass, racers with lesser credentials held the early lead: Andrew Weibrecht, Hans Olsson, Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin and Rok Perko, all topped the Canadian’s early course time.

Then, just before the final original starter, the World Cup downhill standings leader, Michael Walchhofer was granted a provisional re-run after he was inadvertently started during a course hold. On course as demanding as the Bellevarde one does not want to have to make two competitive trips down.

“Walchhofer is one of the best downhill skiers in the world,” Kucera said. “This is a very challenging slope even on one run, but I didn’t count him out until I knew he was going to be in the finish. But when I knew I had it, the joy really overcame me.”

Well it should have. This championship is not a footnote to his career; it is his career. He owns one World Cup win, a super G victory at Lake Louise from November of 2006. He has two additional Cup SG podiums, and nothing better than seventh in downhill. He had not previously placed better than sixth in a World Championship race and that came three days ago. His best Olympic result is 17th in combined. This result provides a feather that is bigger than his hat.

Either the course or the cloud took out most of the major competition. Cuche was superb in his run and Janka ran before the first edge of the clouds. Fourth finishing Marco Buechel produced an honorable result but everybody else was way out of the running.

Bode Miller ran in the very thickest of the cloud, completely obscured from vision through the long lenses of the cameras that provided the only view of the upper half of the course. It was a courageous run, but he was never in contention. Marco Sullivan’s course report neglected to mention any visibility issues and he was very surprised to find himself in a whiteout after rounding a corner.

“That’s when I made my first mistake and from that point on I was kind of playing catch up. … I knew me to be on the podium I was going to have to have a flawless run, so after I made a mistake I was hammering trying to make up that time and it just got worse and worse.” He got caught out in the powder and down to what he estimated was “about 5mph” in order to make a gate. “I knew it was finished at that point.”

Sullivan had one more thing to add. As much as many of the downhillers dislike this strange course, he allowed, “It is a serious test of your technical skiing ability, the guy who wins today is an amazing skier.”

And that guy was Canadian John Kucera, World Champion.

The SCOOP
By Hank McKee

Equipment

FIS World Ski Championships
Men’s Downhill, Val d’Isere, France, Feb. 7, 2009
Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Kucera, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
2 Cuche, Head/Head/Tyrolia
3 Janka, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
4 Buechel, Head/Lange/Tyrolia
5 Theaux, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
6 Maier, Head/Head/Head
7 Heel, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
8 Miller, Head/Head/Tyrolia
9 Kroell, Salomon/Nordica/Salomon
10 Innerhofer, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol

Men’s downhill, FIS World Ski Championships, Val d’Isere, France, Feb. 7, 2009. … It is the fourth race of ten (11 including a team event) scheduled for the title meet and the second for men. … It is the 261st World Championship race and the 61st downhill.

It is the first World Championship medal for John Kucera and the first ever for a Canadian male. … It is the 16th Canadian medal in a World Championships, the most recent a silver from Jan Hudec in the 2007 DH. … It is the first win of the season for Kucera and second podium finish having also placed second in the World Cup SG at Lake Louise Nov. 30. … It is his eighth World Championship result and second for this championship. … It is the first victory of the season for Canada.

It is the third World Championship medal for Didier Cuche and his second of these championships having previously won the super G Feb. 4. … He also won a bronze medal in GS at Are in 2007. … It is, adding the bronze medal from Carlo Janka, the 143rd and 144th World Championship medals for Switzerland. … It is the fourth podium result for Cuche this season and first in DH.

It is just the second placing in a World Championship for Carlo Janka and his first medal having previously placed ninth in super G. … It is his fourth podium placing of the season and second in DH, the first a second place finish at Lake Louise Nov. 29.

It is the 17th career World Championship placing for Bode Miller, including a team placing in 2005. … It is his third best of four Championship DH results. … The placing of eighth matches his seventh best of the season. … It is the fourth career World Championship placing for Marco Sullivan, three of them in DH. … It is his first placing of the 2009 meet.

Medal Count:

SUI 1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze

AUT 1 gold, 2 bronze

CAN 1 gold

USA 1 gold

FRA 1 silver

ITA 1 silver

NOR 1 bronze

Did not finish 1st run: FISHER Erik (USA), MYHRE Lars Elton (NOR), OLSSON Hans (SWE), WEIBRECHT Andrew (USA), POISSON David (FRA), DEFAGO Didier (SUI), GUAY Erik (CAN), OSBORNE-PARADIS Manuel (CAN), HUDEC Jan (CAN), GRUBER Christoph (AUT)