KVITFJELL, Norway — Erik Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., ended three years of near misses and captured his second career World Cup victory Sunday, narrowly winning a super-G.
Guay edged early leader Hannes Reichelt of Austria on the 1994 Olympic course to win his first race since a 2007 downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on top of the podium,” Guay said. “It’s been three years now. I’m just so happy to be there and it feels so good right now.”
Guay’s home Olympics in Vancouver also produced two fifth-place finishes despite bigger expectations.
This time, the close call went Guay’s way and he edged Reichelt by .02 seconds.
“It is a little bit of redemption from the Olympics,” said Guay. “I was only .03 seconds from the podium there, now I’m .02 ahead. Sometimes you win on that side, and sometimes you lose and this time I was on top and it feels great.”
Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and Tobias Gruenenfelder of Switzerland tied for third place. Svindal was second in Saturday’s downhill.
Bode Miller, who took silver in the super-G at Vancouver, skipped the two races in Norway. U.S. teammate Andrew Weibrecht, who took super-G bronze at the Olympics, dislocated his shoulder in a crash in Saturday’s downhill and will miss the remainder of the season.
Didier Cuche of Switzerland, who won Saturday’s downhill, was disqualified. His Swiss teammate and Olympic downhill champion, Didier Defago, lost a ski halfway down the course and crashed.
Reichelt was first out of the starting gate and his time topped the board until Guay came down as No. 18.
Guay clocked one minute, 31.95 seconds over the 2,574-metre Olympiabakken course to snatch victory ahead of Reichelt. Svindal and Gruenenfelder clocked 1:32.26.
“I’ve had a lot of close calls, fourths and fifths and I am going to push hard in the last races next week and see what happens,” said Guay.
Mario Scheiber of Austria was fifth, only 0.01 seconds behind Svindal and Gruenenfelder.
Reichelt posted his best result in two years, a measure of redemption after failing to make Austria’s Olympic squad.
The World Cup season ends next week in Garmisch with final races in four events.
Michael Walchhofer of Austria placed sixth and kept his lead in super-G World Cup standings with one race left. He has 300 points, with Svindal second at 254 and Guay third at 231. A win is worth 100 points.
“Svindal is so strong right now, he can win every race and I am not going to play any tactical games in Garmisch but go for it,” Walchhofer said.
In the overall standings, leader Benjamin Raich ceded more ground to Carlo Janka of Switzerland. Raich finished 19th and now has a total of 1,019 points, while Janka was seventh and is now only 46 behind.
“I’ll have to take risks if I want to get ahead,” Janka said.
Cuche is third with 846 points and Svindal is fourth at 801.