Last medal chance for Cuche and Janka at 2010 Games

With three alpine skiing events already played out it seems almost inconceivable that Didier Cuche and Carlo Janka haven’t managed a medal between them.

Janka’s fourth place in Sunday’s super combination is the best result to date from the pre-Olympic favourites who will be racing at the 2010 Games for the last time in Tuesday’s giant slalom (GS) event.

Cuche’s mystified reaction after the downhill, when he inexplicably bled time on the lower section to finish in sixth place, and a no-show at his more favoured event, the super G, suggest that something is seriously wrong with the skier from Neuchâtel who looked in prime condition only a few weeks ago in Kitsbühel.

Surgery on this right thumb at the end of January isn’t the answer – Cuche was very quick in training at Whistler prior to the downhill.

Janka was curiously out of sorts until his all-round skills finally kicked in to bring him fourth in the super combination at the Games on Sunday.

Swiss team coach, Martin Rufener reckons that Janka is finally coming to terms with alien conditions in Canada and is improving from race to race. “He’s getting more confident,” said Rufener.

The unflappable Janka calls Tuesday’s showdown “a race like any other” and aims “to win or reach the podium".

At 23-years-old, Janka can expect to compete at probably another three Olympics, but for Cuche, 36, time is fast running out.

Tuesday is perhaps Cuche’s only remaining chance to add to his disappointing Olympic medal collection of just a super G silver from Nagano 12 years ago.

The Swiss was last year’s world cup champion at GS and on the money earlier this season, winning the event in Soeldan, Austria.

More recently however, Cuche has failed to register on the podium and dropped to 10^th on the GS standings.

For inspiration, Cuche is looking back to the World Championships in Are, Sweden three years ago where he took the GS bronze.

"I remember I was in the same situation,” he told the Tribune de Genève newspaper. "I finished fourth in super-G and sixth in the downhill. Of course, this medal won’t come to me by itself. I will have to go hard," he said.

Meanwhile the smart money will be focusing on triple medal winner American Bode Miller and fellow American Tid Ligety who told AFP: "All of my giant slalom wins have been in kind of warm, slushy conditions," he said.

Vancouver has been plagued by unseasonably high temperatures during the Games.

Aksel Svindal of Norway, or perhaps Austrian veteran Benjamin Raich, the current overall world cup leader and compatriot, Marcel Herscher are also in the running.

Michael von Gruenigen was the last Swiss to win a GS Olympic medal, also back in 1998 behind Austrians Hermann Maier and Stephan Eberharter.

Switzerland’s last Olympic gold medal at the event was won by Max Julen at Sarajevo in 1984.

Thursday’s GS in Vancouver sees the first leg at 6.30pm CET with the second run scheduled at 10pm.