Whistler (AFP) – Swiss veteran Didier Cuche topped the first training run for the men’s Olympic alpine skiing downhill here on Wednesday.

With the blue riband event to take place on Saturday, the racers have the opportunity to test the 3,105-metre-long Dave Murray course three times before the race.

Cuche, the reigning world super-G champion, clocked 1min 53.22sec down the picturesque tree-lined course that showed a vertical drop of 853 metres.

It was a reassuring day’s skiing for Cuche, coming just two weeks after he fractured his right thumb in a crash during a giant slalom at Kranjska Gora in Slovenia.

Sporting a helmet showing a map of Canada, the 35-year-old made the most of his early starting bib number of 16 as training was later hampered by a lack of visibility and deteriorating snow conditions.

“I had two days of training before today and during that I felt really good,” Cuche said, adding that his thumb had not affected him.

“It’s not really painful, it’s just bothering me a little bit, and today when I was really concentrating I felt nothing.”

Cuche added that given the variable weather conditions forecast for the coming days, he was glad to have notched up a satisfying run.

“The course is really nice but maybe not as hard as I like it,” he said. “I’m happy to be fast in the first training run because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple of days.”

Canada’s Robbie Dixon finished with the second fastest time of 1:53.51 to offer hopes of a home skier being able to push for a podium spot.

Swiss pair Ambrosini Hoffman and Didier Defago were next in the timings, at 0.55 and 0.80sec respectively.

Italian downhill specialist Werner Heel was in fifth at 0.82sec with another Canadian medal hope, Manuel Osborne-Paradis, a further 0.14sec adrift.

Then came American Bode Miller and a fourth Swiss racer, Patrick Kueng, with Austrian Michael Walchhofer, the reigning Olympic downhill silver medallist who also claimed world downhill gold in 2003 and super-G silver in the 2005 worlds in Bormio, in ninth at 1.16sec.

“It’s my first time on this hill,” said Walchhofer. “It’s a great slope although it’s not so fast. It was nice to ski, and there are a lot of bumps.

“If there’s just one training run, maybe it’s better for them (Canadians).”

The second downhill training run is slated to take place on Thursday and the third on Friday, with the actual race scheduled for Saturday morning.

The downhill will be followed by the super-combined on February 16, the super-G (Feb 19), the giant slalom (Feb 21) and the slalom (Feb 27).

lp/dj10