Canada’s Osborne-Paradis strikes silver in downhill
Veteran downhiller earns his second medal of season; Vathje takes skeleton bronze
Canadian skier Manuel Osborne-Paradis went for a long walk earlier this week to ponder his future.
The 31-year-old from North Vancouver, B.C., had crashed a couple of times this season and caution had crept in.
“I was thinking ‘Your mind is not into the skiing, you’re scared, you’re skiing scared,’ ” Osborne-Paradis said. “I was thinking ‘Is this how my career ends? I have a couple crashes and I just ski my way out of the top 30?’ ”
Osborne-Paradis answered with a resounding ‘no’ on Saturday, racing to a silver medal in a World Cup downhill in Kvitfjell, Norway.
The native of North Vancouver, B.C., finished three-tenths of a second behind winner Hannes Reichelt of Austria. Reichelt claimed his second straight downhill victory with a time of one minute 29.65 seconds on the Olympiabakken course. Werner Heel of Italy was third, 0.38 off the pace.
Osborne-Paradis, who won gold in Kvitfjell six years ago, posted the fastest speed Saturday, at one point surpassing 150 kilometres an hour. It’s the second medal of the season for the Canadian, who won a silver in the downhill at Lake Louise, Alta.
The Canadian told himself on his walk: “Find your courage, find your will to win.
“I think I was able to do that,” he said on a conference call. “It’s the only way to ski fast, to want to ski fast. That was a nice feeling today results aside . . . skiing was fun today. Let me tell you, when you’re going 140 kilometres an hour and you don’t want to be going 140 kilometres an hour, that is a scary, scary time in your life.”
Osborne-Paradis got off to a rough start on his run to the podium. He made a mistake coming out of the start gate and was in last place through the first split time. He lost more time on the first gate, but then started to pick up momentum.
“I was definitely making up time the whole way down,” he said. “I was kind of in shock at the bottom, I didn’t celebrate at all. I was just kind of like ‘Huh, I cannot believe that that was the second-place run,’ because it felt like all the other runs I’ve had.
“But I focused on skiing this time, and not on the tactics, (not) skiing like I’m reading it out of a book, but skiing more like I knew how to do it from the back of my head.”
Osborne-Paradis will race a giant slalom on Sunday, then wrap up the season with the World Cup finals in Meribel, France. BRONZE FOR VATHJE: Canada’s Elisabeth Vathje capped a dream rookie season on the international skeleton circuit with a bronze medal at the world championships Saturday.
The 20-year-old from Calgary captured Canada’s eighth medal by a female skeleton athlete in the 12 world championships since 2000.
“It is surreal,” Vathje said. “I didn’t have the best two runs today, but it was good enough to get on the podium. It really is amazing. I never expected this and it was such a rollercoaster season for all of us.”
Jane Channell of North Vancouver, B.C., was fourth. SILVER FOR SMITH: Canadian Nathan Smith won a silver medal at the world biathlon championships Saturday in Finland, finishing the10kilometre sprint between Norwegian brothers Johannes Thingnes Boe and Tarjei Boe.
Thingnes Boe, who won his first world title, missed his 10th and final shot after hitting the first nine at the two shooting stations, but finished in 24 minutes 12.8 seconds.
Calgary’s Smith was12.1seconds behind while the older Boe brother shot clean but was 25.3 seconds back.