KVITFJELL, Norway—Manuel Osborne-Paradis of Canada earned his first victory in a World Cup downhill on Friday, edging Michael Walchhofer of Austria by 0.31 seconds.
Osborne-Paradis covered the Olympiabakken course built for the 1994 Winter Olympics in 1 minute, 47.09 seconds. His previous best downhill result was a second-placed finish in 2007 at Lake Louise, Canada.
Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway, the 2007 overall champion, was third.
Walchhofer edged closer to the downhill title, with two races remaining this season.
“It was a great race for me,” Walchhofer said. “I’m very happy with my second place. It was very important to get 80 points.”
Bode Miller, the defending overall champion, recently decided to skip the rest of the World Cup season. He was out of the running to repeat as overall champion.
Marco Sullivan of the United States was 14th and teammate Steven Nyman finished 27th.
Though Osborne-Paradis crashed when he skied Kvitfjell’s Olympic course for first time in 2005, he said he has fond memories.
“I’ve always like this course a lot,” he said. “It has every aspect a downhill should have. It’s got flats, steeps, really big hard turns, quick turns, big jumps. It really does have everything.”
Last year he just missed the podium, finishing fourth and fifth on the course that former Swiss downhill great Bernhard Russi designed.
“It feels great to finally be able to step on the top of the podium,” Osborne-Paradis said. “I didn’t have the best top splits. It seems the middle was where I excelled the most.”
No other Canadian has won a downhill or a super-G at Kvitfjell. The only Canadians who made the podium were Ed Podivinsky (downhill) in 1997 and Erik Guay (downhill) in 2007.
The race was delayed for several minutes after Patrik Jaerbyn—who started 23rd out of 63 racers—crashed on the lower part of the course. The Swede, at 39 the oldest skier on the World Cup circuit, was unhurt.
