Canada's Jan Hudec celebrates after winning an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill, in Chamonix, France, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Mario Curti)
Canada's Jan Hudec celebrates after winning an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill, in Chamonix, France, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Mario Curti)
Canada's Jan Hudec takes a jump on his way to win an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill, in Chamonix, France, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)
Canada's Jan Hudec takes a jump on his way to win an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill, in Chamonix, France, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)
Canada's Jan Hudec celebrates in the finish area after winning an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill, in Chamonix, France, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Mario Curti)
Canada's Jan Hudec celebrates on the podium after winning an alpine ski, men's World Cup downhill, in Chamonix, France, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Mario Curti)
CHAMONIX, France (AP) ? In a great day for Canadian skiing, Jan Hudec won a World Cup downhill for a surprising victory while teammate Erik Guay finished third in piercing cold over an icy slope.
Hudec, whose career has been blighted by knee injuries and operations, won for the first time in more than four years Saturday. He thumped his chest with his fist when he realized his long wait had ended.
"What can I say? I knew the day was coming," Hudec said. "Sometimes it's harder for everybody else to see, but I knew it was coming. I was close a few times this season, but I was still missing something in my skiing and I knew Chamonix was a good start."
With temperatures at minus 15 at the top of the course, he finished in 2 minutes, 3.25 seconds, followed by Austria's Romed Baumann in 2:03.78. Guay, the reigning world downhill champion, was 0.63 seconds behind the winner.
"I knew I didn't have too many more chances to do what I want in ski racing," Hudec said. "It was a very small window and I definitely had to start focusing. I'm very fortunate that I have a lot of people around me that care about me, and about the whole team."
Benjamin Thomsen added to the Canadian surge by sneaking into fifth place despite being the 50th skier to go down.
"I think we have been building a really great team in the last years ... and then our team has sort of been plagued with injuries and we lost that momentum that we had started to build," Guay said. "Now that Jan is back I feel like he is starting to push me a bit and it motivates the team. ... It's quite a story with the way he's come back."
Switzerland's Beat Feuz was fourth, with Austria's Klaus Kroell sixth and Switzerland's Didier Cuche seventh. The top U.S. skier was Bode Miller in eight place. Miller, who was second in Friday's downhill, lost time in the bottom section after making a solid start.
In the overall standings, defending champion Ivica Kostelic of Croatia leads with 905 points, with Austria's Marcel Hirscher at 825 and Feuz at 733.
Cuche, who will retire at the end of the season, is defending his downhill title and leads after eight races with 473 points, ahead of Kroell (437) and Feuz (368).
Hudec was trailing Baumann until he reached the midsection and then started shaving huge chunks off the Austrian's time. While Kroell won Friday's downhill by just 0.01 seconds, Hudec smashed Baumann's time by 0.53 to deprive the Austrians of a second straight win.
This was Hudec's second World Cup victory and first since his downhill triumph at Lake Louise, Alberta, in November 2007. The 30-year-old skier had started that year promisingly with a silver medal at the worlds in Are, Sweden, and ended it with a third-place finish in a World Cup downhill at Bormio, Italy, a month later.
Then his career plummeted ? he tore ligaments in his right knee and needed repeated surgery. His body was so bashed up he had full reconstructive surgery on his knee four times, three times on his right and once on his left. What's more, he had two further knee operations and also had severe back problems.
"I woke up this morning feeling the best I've felt for 10, maybe 12 years," Hudec said. "I had no pain"
Hudec had been close Friday, holding the leading time early on before slipping to sixth place.
"I felt yesterday like I had a winning run but it was maybe too early a start ... but no excuses," Hudec said. "I didn't think it was possible, but I had an even better run than yesterday and put the nail in the coffin as they say."
Hudec's run Saturday was even more special because he did not have the best light after starting 24th on the La Verte des Houches course. Those before had blue skies and profited from brighter sunshine.
After a tricky and technical top section, Hudec found himself behind Baumann, but as he started to pick up speed he went 0.36, 0.47 and 0.54 ahead of the Austrian at successive splits.
"I've always said that Jan is probably one of the best natural skiers out there," Guay said. "Especially when it comes to gliding, he's absolutely unbelievable, as we saw in the bottom section today. It's exceptional what he did today, but it's also good for the team because it motivates everyone to do better."
Baumann thought he had won after he crossed the line, except he hadn't checked who was coming after him.
"I was very confident when I'd finished and I was sure it was enough to win," Baumann said through a translator. "But I didn't have the start list and I didn't realize Hudec was starting after me."
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