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Manuel Osborne-Paradis won for the second time early in the 2009-'10 World Cup season, taking the classic Saslong downhill in Val Gardena, Italy, on Saturday (Dec. 19).
The Whistler Mountain Ski Club alumnus, who won the Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart super-G last month, is the first Canadian to win twice in a season since Thomas Grandi won two giant slalom races in three days in December 2004.
“Before Christmas normally I don't ski that well,” Osborne-Paradis said in an Alpine Canada Alpin statement. “But I have been getting better and I am figuring out these courses more and more, just becoming so much more confident on every course.”
“This is the first year that I have had a game plan on every course before I have got here, just with the experience that I have. I have put in my time and now it's just paying off with me being able to know the courses,” he said.
Osborne-Paradis, the ninth racer of the day to leave the start hut, won with a time of two minutes, 01.27 seconds. Austria's Mario Scheiber put up the day's greatest challenge to the Canadian, finishing 13 hundredths of a second behind. Ambrosi Hoffmann of Switzerland was third in 2:01.52.
Osborne-Paradis now has eight career World Cup podium results and has become the fifth Canadian male alpine ski racer with more than two career World Cup wins.
He downplayed the notion that his performances have been motivated by the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Whistler.
“I am not peaking right now or skiing fast because I want to win at the Olympics. I am skiing fast because I wanted to win today,” he said.
Osborne-Paradis is not the first Canadian male to win a downhill in Val Gardena. In fact, Rob Boyd, who is currently a coach for Canada's women's speed team, won there in 1986 and again the following year.
Despite recent injuries to three of their teammates, it was a solid day overall for the Canadians, with Robbie Dixon of Whistler placing sixth in 2:01.77 and Erik Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., 11th in 2:02.13. Jan Hudec of Calgary finished 36th.
