The 2009/10 Coupe GMC Cup season was launched in Toronto, ON today with the help of three GMC Cup alumni, who are also World Cup winners and recipients of GMC’s performance incentive program.
John Kucera (Calgary, AB), Erik Guay (Mont-Tremblant, QC) and Manuel Osborne-Paradis (Vancouver, BC) qualified for the one year use of a GM vehicle through their exceptional World Cup and FIS World Championships performance last season.
Through the partnership with Canada’s alpine ski teams, General Motors provides use of a GM vehicle for one year to any Canadian alpine ski racer who wins a World Cup race, finishes in the top 10 in the overall standings in any discipline or finishes on the podium at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
“I really appreciate the long term support that General Motors provides athletes and how, through performance incentives, excellence in sport is being promoted. In my case, I have chosen to drive the GMC Sierra again this year because of its best in class fuel economy and its features, which suit the Alberta lifestyle perfectly,” said Kucera, who last year became the first Canadian male in history to win the men’s downhill at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
Guay, who qualified for the fourth consecutive season by finishing sixth in the men’s downhill standings last season, selected the Yukon Denali. Osborne-Paradis, a World Cup winner in Kvitfjell, NOR last March, accepted the keys to the fuel efficient GMC Yukon Hybrid.
Michael Janyk (Whistler, BC) became the first Canadian male to podium in a technical event when he finished third in the men’s slalom at the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. Janyk, who won the overall GMC Cup championship in 2004, earned the keys to a GMC Acadia with last season’s performance.
‘In 1969 Olympic Champion Nancy Greene Raine approached GM Canada with the concept of creating a strong Canadian series for up-and-coming Canadian alpine racers to compete with the best in the country. The original Pontiac Cup series was launched, and out of it came some of Canada’s best alpine racers including Kathy Kreiner, Gerry Sorensen, Laurie Graham, Karen Percy, and the Crazy Canucks”, said Marc Comeau vp, sales, service and marketing for GM Canada. “We could not have imagined the legacy we were jointly creating at the time and how this series would grow to be an integral part of Alpine Canada’s sophisticated development program.”
“It has been more than four decades since GM Canada began its commitment to ski racing in Canada, to developing the highest quality programs and partnerships that are focused on helping our athletes achieve their goals,” said ACA President Gary Allan.
“We share a common focus not just on this season, with the 2010 Winter Games now just five months away, but on a partnership that is focused on success into the future as well,” said Allan.
The Canadian Alpine Ski Team and GMC will also announce details next month about wind tunnel testing at the GM Aerodynamics Laboratory in Warren, Michigan.
