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Guay to miss opening speed races
30 October 2014 года
Guay to miss opening speed races
Canadian Erik Guay, the 2011 downhill world champion and super G season title winner in 2010, has had a rough fight to return to form in time for marquee events over the past two years.

Now, he has opted to sit out the opening speed races on the World Cup calendar in order to heal properly in an effort to contest the remainder of the season highlighted by the 2015 World Championships in Vail-Beaver Creek. North American fans will no doubt be disappointed with Guay’s absence at the November Lake Louise and December Beaver Creek races, but the 33-year-old speed specialist needs more time to heal from two off-season knee surgeries.

“Right now, our optimistic calculations should put me back on snow around the seventh of December. If everything goes well from there, I’d like to start racing the last weekend of December,” Guay told the Canadian press. “It took a little bit longer than originally anticipated, but things are on schedule now. I’m working on gaining some mass and strength back into my leg.”

Guay’s left knee was operated on in 2013, and last January he re-injured it during training in Wengen but pushed on to race at the Olympics. He underwent arthroscopic surgery on the knee following the Sochi Games where he placed 10th in the downhill and was disqualified in the super G after he missed a gate. But the procedure left him with residual pain and swelling, so he elected to undergo a more invasive surgery in June to replace bone and cartilage in the joint.

He has stated his intentions to race at the 2018 PyeongChang Games in an effort to obtain that all-so-elusive Olympic medal that he missed out on in 2006 (coming in fourth at the Torino super G) and in 2010 (with fifth-place finishes in both the super G and downhill in Vancouver). But he will have to endure three more seasons until 2018, and he will be 36-years-old by the start in PyeongChang. In addition to his injuries, Guay also switched ski brands this year from Atomic toHEAD, and he will be far behind his competitors in ski testing and dialing in his equipment once he returns to snow in December.



On the women’s team, multi-discipline talent Marie-Michele Gagnon dislocated her left shoulder for the third time in eight months during a crash in the season opener in Soelden, Austria. She is determined to delay surgery until the conclusion of the season and is optimistic that she will still be able to start in the first slalom race of the year in Levi, Finland on Nov. 15.


“I am continuing this season as planned and am planning to be in Levi (for) the slalom opening race,” Gagnon posted to Instagram. “For the time being though, rest, rehab and therapy are my best friend. Off to Calgary I will be for the next little bit!”

Gagnon claimed her first World Cup victory last season at the super combined in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee and has been a top-5 threat in slalom, giant slalom, and super G. She had already committed herself to focusing on the technical disciplines in the 2014-15 season before Saturday’s injury.

Source: fis-ski.com



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