Jansrud wins men’s downhill to close in on title

KVITFJELL, Norway — Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud took a key step toward the downhill skiing World Cup title on Saturday with a victory in Kvitfjell while Canadians Manuel Osborne-Paradis and Erik Guay just missed the podium.

Jansrud beat his closest title rival, defending downhill champion Peter Fill of Italy, by 0.08 seconds to extend his downhill standings lead to 33 points with one race remaining.

Beat Feuz of Switzerland was third, 0.14 off Jansrud’s time. Osborne-Paradis, from Invermere, B.C., was 0.12 seconds behind Feuz in fourth place while Guay, from Mont-Tremblant, Que., was sixth.

“I’m missing that little extra urge to keep making speed which translates into a tenth (of a second) here and tenth there,” said Osborne-Paradis. “It’s really nice to be consistently comfortable with a high quality style of skiing. I like super-G and I’m hoping tomorrow will be a fast set. I’m expecting high speed and blind gates. It’s always a really hard super-G here and it will take a lot of risk to be successful.”

Guay won two medals at the world championships this month while Osborne-Paradis also reached the podium.

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“Manny and I are kind of feeding off each other right now, which is good,” said Guay. “You have to give respect to those top guys are are skiing extremely well. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t do better today but I think the skiing was there.

“I’m focused on tomorrow’s super-G now and I know if I ski to my potential, I can do something good here.”

Calgary’s Tyler Werry was 51st and Jeffrey Frisch of Mont-Tremblant, Que., was 52nd. 

Jansrud is the first man to win two downhills this season after victory in Val d’Isere in December. He’s chasing a second career downhill title after winning in 2014, and would bring Norway its fourth downhill men’s title in the last five seasons.

“I committed an error toward the end which could have been decisive,” Jansrud told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

The last race is in Aspen on March 15, where second place would guarantee the title for Jansrud.

Italian skier Dominik Paris was in title contention prior to Saturday’s race, but he finished ninth and can no longer overtake Jansrud.

Saturday’s race was interrupted when U.S. skier Jared Goldberg lost control on his run and flew through the air, landing on his back before hitting a fence at high speed.

He was able to stand and talk.

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With files from The Canadian Press.

The Associated Press