Olympic super-G champion Kjetil Jansrud captured the season-opening men's World Cup downhill Saturday by holding off a fierce challenge from Manny Osborne-Paradis and Guillermo Fayed.
Jansrud finished in one minute, 50.20 seconds in the first of two World Cup races this weekend in the Canadian Rockies.
Skiing back-to-back in the 26th and 27th positions, France's Fayed and Canada's Osborne-Paradis clocked identical 1:50.34 times to finish in a tie for second.
Jansrud, who also had the fastest time in Wednesday's lone training run, posted his first career win at Lake Louise.
Organizers had to cancel two training runs because of heavy snow but the racers were greeted with a sun-splashed icy course on Saturday morning with temperatures hovering around -18 Celsius (-1 Fahrenheit).
Italy's Dominik Paris, who won last year's Lake Louise downhill, finished fourth in 1:50.61 while American Marco Sullivan rounded out the top five with a time of 1:50.68.
Jansrud won two Olympic medals at the Sochi Games earlier this year, taking a bronze in downhill to go along with his super-G gold. He almost collected a third Sochi medal, finishing fourth in the combined.
Crowd favourite Osborne-Paradis won his first World Cup medal in at Lake Louise in 2006, placing second.
Saturday's podium finish is expected to be a huge confidence boost for the newly-married Canuck veteran who is still trying to come back from a devastating crash three years ago.
Osborne-Paradis finished a disappointing 28th in the downhill at the Canadian venue last year.
Austria's Matthias Mayer, who shocked the ski world when he claimed the downhill gold in Sochi, placed 15th with a time of 1:51.28.
The second Lake Louise race and first super-G of the 2014-15 season is scheduled for Sunday.
With the victory, Jansrud seizes an early lead in the World Cup downhill standings with 100 points. Osborne-Paradis and Fayed each have 80.
Source: AFP