Vancouver, Feb 5 (IANS): After failing to win a Winter Olympics medal for the past 20 years, Canadian alpine skiers are hoping to end their prolonged drought at the Sochi Games that open Friday, slalom racer Brad Spence said here.
With Ed Podivinsky being the last Canadian alpine skier to grace an Olympic podium when he won a bronze in the men's downhill at the 1994 Lillehammer Games, Calgary native Spence felt the 15-strong team going to Sochi had too much talent to be denied a medal, reports Xinhua.
He cited top skiers such as Marie-Michel Gagnon, who captured her maiden World Cup win in the super combined in Austria last month, in addition to top men's racer Erik Guay, the downhill winner in Val Gardena, Italy, this season, as genuine medal threats.
Other top contenders include Erin Mielzynski, winner of a women's world cup slalom event in Germany in 2012, and Jan Hudec and and Manuel Osborne-Paradis, both of whom are in the top-50 of the men's world rankings.
"Watching the downhill and the Super G races this year, the ski team, every time a Canadian pushes out of the gate, they have a chance of winning. Erik showed it and Jan has been on the podium as well," said Spence Tuesday, who will be appearing in his second Olympics after competing in both the giant slalom and slalom events at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
"Skiing requires a little bit of luck and some days you just have it and some days you don't. I know that Canada's got some of the best skiers out there. I really hope that on race days luck just happens to be shining for Canada and we can finally break that spell of not having Olympics medals."
While Canadian alpine skiers have a long history at the Olympics, having won 10 medals over the years, the drought has been particularly long for those specialising in slalom.
Anne Heggtveit won the gold for Canada in slalom at the 1960 Squaw Valley Games, followed by Nancy Greene in 1968 when she won the gold and silver in giant slalom and slalom, respectively, at Grenoble. Since then, a Canadian has not graced the podium in a slalom event.
With 14 top-20 finishes in world cup slalom events since 2009 but still looking for his first top-3 finish, the 29-year-old, who is competing in a Nor-Am event in Vermont this weekend, said his goal going into Sochi is to put together two good runs when he hits the slopes Feb 22.
Before then, Spence will have 10 days of practice with the Canadian team in Italy and possibly another couple of races in Germany before travelling to Russia.
"Definitely on the speed side there's a lot of momentum. I know that on the technical side, on the slalom team especially, there's been a lot of frustrating races where the conditions just haven't really worked in our favour. It's really favoured the earlier start numbers and unfortunately with our world rankings we don't have those numbers.
"I would say that most of us on the technical side share that frustration. We know that we're a lot better than the results we've had this year and we just hope the conditions are fair in the race days," Spence added.