Alpine Skiing

The calendar says summer's just about gone, sad for the rest of us, but to Canada's 2010 Olympians something else again.

For them autumnal equinox represents the end of the big preamble, of the purely theoretical questions and responses, of the option of not looking so far down the road. Another winter sport season is about to commence and there's no avoiding that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that comes smack dab in the middle of it.

Fall's here, and the elephant has entered the room.

On Monday, three of Canada's best hopes in the men's downhill, which (weather permitting) will be the first medal event in Whistler, turned up in Toronto to thank General Motors for the nifty cars they'll be driving as a reward for fine performance last season.

John Kucera, regarded as more of a super-G specialist, surprised the skiing world by winning the downhill at the World Alpine Championships on the icy course in Val d'Isère. Though he didn't win a race, Erik Guay's consistency allowed him to finish sixth in the World Cup standings. And Manuel Osborne-Paradis, the biggest personality and perhaps the biggest talent on the team, enjoyed his breakthrough late in the season, finishing first and third in consecutive downhills in Norway. (Absent was World Championships slalom bronze medalist Michael Janyk, who also gets his car.)

A great year for all of them, 2009, and as of now, might as well strike it off the books. Though there is still some question just how many skiers Canada will be able to enter in the 2010 Games overall (it's 18 at the moment, under the nearly unfathomable FIS ranking system, though at one point it was down to 14, and Canada would much prefer 20, or even 22), one thing is pretty much certain: come that opening Saturday morning on the Dave Murray course, Canada will have four spots in the men's downhill, and at least five skiers, perhaps six, with a legitimate shot at claiming them.

Those places will have to be earned between now and then. And while past performance might eventually factor into the decision, what matters most is the here and now. Win a World Cup race this season, and you're in. After that, it gets interesting.

"My hope is to have a minimum of two guys pre-qualified, a maximum of three" the men's team manager, Paul Kristofic, says. "I don't want to be going in with four spots up for grabs going into the Games."

Of course, it could still be that way, if early season results are disappointing. And in any case the internal race could become rather interesting. There are the three skiers who were last season's stars, there is Jan Hudec, a proved World Cup performer, fighting back from a knee injury suffered last February, and there is Robbie Dixon, a dark horse who everyone associated with the team believes is on the verge of a breakthrough, and who might have some advantages skiing on what is his home mountain at Whistler.

The competition began heating up, Kristofic says, during the last days of the just completed training sessions in Chile. The team will take the next three weeks off, its final break, and then head to Europe for glacier skiing and last-minute preparation for the season. Really, from the minute they're on snow again, the evaluation process begins.

Health will obviously factor in, as will current form. Sentiment won't be a factor at all. "Not for me it won't," Kristofic says. With the pressure to reach the podium more intense than it has ever been, no one is going to punch a ticket to a home Olympics because they're much beloved, because they have given the team their all, because of what they've done in the distant past.

One spot will remain open almost until the very end - a "coach's choice." For two or three skiers at least, it could all come down to the training runs in Whistler (though because of ever-changing conditions, they won't technically be racing off against each other, the way technical skiers on the same team might.)

Someone, perhaps several someones, are going to come out of this broken-hearted, left standing and watching at the Creekside finish line in February instead of wearing their country's colours in the starting gate, in front of a proud, partisan crowd.

That's the way the Austrians do it, and the Swiss, and any other country that accepts nothing less than medals. Canada, as never before, will try to follow that same path.