Manuel Obsorne-Paradis (Whistler, BC) already has a career-high third World Cup podium of the season after finishing an second in today’s 80th running of the renowned Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen, SUI.
Osborne-Paradis continues to impress this season, adding to the two wins he already has by finishing today’s grueling race in two minutes 32.89 seconds. It’s his ninth career podium and second in the DH in Wengen, after a third place finish in 2008.
Today’s race is being broadcast on CBC and Radio-Canada starting at 3:00 p.m. ET.
Osborne-Paradis has shown an ability to produce strong race results despite being in the back of the pack in training and today was no different as his top result in the week’s training runs was a 30th place.
“I didn’t think I was faster today then I was yesterday actually. But on race day, you have that excitement added and the big crowed there. Why would you want to crash in the training run, it makes no sense. I felt like I was on the edge a couple of times today, but I kept my tuck and I did that little extra thing I had to do,” said Osborne-Paradis, who had bib #16 selected for him at last night’s bib draw.
“When I got down, I was pretty surprised with my time, I looked at the time board and I saw 17 and then 18, and then I realized it was -0,17 seconds so I really got excited. I didn’t know what to expect today, all I knew was that I has to go fast and obviously I believe what my coaches tell me about my skiing so I just went for it. You can only think of what you need to do and forget about the past,” added Osborne-Paradis.
The 30,000 fans gathered around the Lauberhorn went crazy as Carlo Janka os Switzerland crossed the finish line with the best time of the day, beating Osborne-Paradis by 0.67 seconds. This is Janka’s second podium in as many days as he finished second in yesterday’s super combined.
A very happy and emotional Marco Buechel from Liechtenstein finished in third place with a time of 2:33.05. This was Buechel’s first time on the podium since last years’ second place in the downhill in Beaver Creek.
Erik Guay (Mont-Tremblant, QC) was the second best Canadian today. He crossed the finish line with a time of 2:34.86 which ranked him in 18th place.
When asked about Osborne-Paradis performance Guay had plenty of praise for his teammate.
“Manny knows how to perform on race day. He just gets in this race day mode and rips it. I might have a couple of things to learn from him,” said Guay.
Tyler Nella (Toronto, ON) finished in 39th place with a time of 2:37.64 ahead of Jan Hudec (Calgary, AB) by 0,01 seconds who ranked in 40th place. This was Nella’s career best performance in a World Cup event.
