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. And a day earlier, Jono Brauer finished in 27th place in the super combined at the same venue.
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.
And a day earlier, Jono Brauer finished in 27th place in the super combined at the same venue.
Branch was just 1.66 seconds off the race-winning pace of former World Cup downhill champion Michael Walchhofer of Austria down the Birds of Prey course, which was shortened by bad weather.
The 30-year-old Perisher Blue skier completed the 2.2km journey in a time of one minute 15.4 seconds.
Walchhofer collected the gold with a time of 1 minute 13.74 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/NSWIS 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.
Unfortunately, Branch was less successful on the final day of Beaver Creek racing, coming out of the course in the early stages of the super G.
Jono Brauer had a promising first stage of the super combined, skiing to 18th place in the downhill leg, in a time of one minute 15.48 seconds, 1.98 seconds slower than Cuche, the fastest man down the hill.
The 26-year-old Thredbo skier slipped back in the single run slalom leg, posting the 28th fastest time for a total time of 2 minutes 3.7 seconds
The race was won by Swiss skier Daniel Albrecht, the first World Cup victory of his career, in a time of two minutes and 26 seconds.
Meanwhile, SSA skier Katya Crema has finished in 40th place in a Nor-Am giant slalom in Keystone, Colorado and 46th in a slalom in Winter Park, also in Colorado.
