Alpine Skiing World Championships Men's Downhill

Aksel Lund Svindal claimed gold in Schladming to keep up his remarkable record in the World Championships, meaning he had won gold medals in events at each of the last 4 World Championships, following his golds in the downhill and giant slalom at Are, and in the super-combined in Val d'Isere and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Canadian Erik Guay won the downhill on the Kandahar course on an incredibly warm Saturday morning that suited the early starters before the slope warmed up. The 29 year old from Mont-Tremblant showed no signs of the troublesome back injury that had blighted his season to fly down the slope in 1 minute 58.41 seconds, 0.32 seconds ahead of Didier Cuche. The Kandahar slope at Garmisch-Partenkirchen held happy memories for Guay - his only previous downhill victory had been on this same slope back in February 2007. His gold also meant that the Downhill title remained in Canadian hands following John Kucera's victory in 2009 at Val d'Isere.

Warm temperatures had been affecting the World Championships but this was the first event when even overnight temperatures were struggling to stay below zero. By the time of the race start it was already 4 degrees up at 2000m and over 10 degrees down at the finish. The top section of the course remained icy but as more and more racers came down the conditions continued to warm up and the slope became slower. Guay took advantage of a decent bib number (10) and almost flawless run to record a time that only Cuche looked like he would get anywhere near. The veteran Swiss skier had been complaining about the start positions for the world's top downhill racers and he had a point, as all the big names came down in a block between bib 15 and bib 22. Cuche still nearly pulled off his first World Championship Downhill gold, but a couple of minor mistakes right at the end of the run possibly made the difference between silver and gold. It was his 2nd downhill silver in succession, and the 2nd time he'd missed out to a Canadian, having been pipped by John Kucera at the Val d'Isese Championships. Christof Innerhofer, skiing immediately before Guay, had set a great time and added the Bronze to the Gold he'd won in the Super G three days earlier. Britains only racer was TJ Baldwin who finished 38th, 8 seconds behind Guay.