In the second event since coming back from a major knee injury, Craig Branch has skied to the best downhill result of his career, finishing in 33rd place in the Beaver Creek World Cup in Colorad
In the second event since coming back from a major knee injury, Craig Branch has skied to the best downhill result of his career, finishing in 33rd place in the Beaver Creek World Cup in Colorado.
Competing on a Birds of Prey course shortened by bad weather, Branch was just 1.66 seconds off the race-winning pace of former World Cup downhill champion Michael Walchhofer of Austria.
The 30-year-old Thredbo skier completed the 2.2km journey in a time of one minute 15.4 seconds.
Walchhofer collected the gold with a time of 1 minute13.74 seconds, just five hundredths of a second ahead of US skier Steven Nyman.
Defending World Cup downhill champion Didier Cuche of Switzerland was another five hundredths of a second further back in the bronze medal position.
Branch's previous best downhill result, a 34th, came on the same course two years ago.
The OWI athlete has only bettered 33rd on one occasion, recording a 32nd in super G in December 2005, also in Beaver Creek.
The performance is particularly noteworthy, not only because it was his second race back, but because the injury that destroyed his season last year was sustained in a crash on the Birds of Prey course.
A day earlier, OWI team-mate Jono Brauer - also back from injury - had finished 27th in the super combined.
Branch will line up for the super G on Sunday morning AEST.