Lake Louise (AB), Canada – The World Cup speed events tripped the wand on Wednesday, while the men kicked out of the start for the first of three downhill training runs followed by downhill and super G races in Lake Louise. Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal led the run in 1:49.97, while Bode Miller led the U.S. in seventh and Robbie Dixon topped fellow Canadians in 15th.nMiller, who will be starting in both the downhill and super G will be joined in Saturday’s downhill opener by fellow Americans Marco Sullivan, Steven Nyman, Andrew Weibrecht, Travis Ganong, Erik Fisher, Ted Ligety, Will Brandenburg, and Tommy Biesemeyer. USA’s Tommy Ford and Chris Frank, who won World Cup super G start for the season from his 2010 NorAm results, will be putting on the miles in the three training runs.

For Canada, Dixon was joined on Wednesday by Erik Guay, Manuel Osborne-Paradis, François Bourque, Louis-Pierre Hélie, Tyler Nella, Jan Hudec and World Cup rookie Kelby Halbert. Dixon was the only one of the eight to finish.

“It was cold this morning and I wasn’t really looking forward to (today’s run) before the sun came out,” said Dixon, acknowledging that Wednesday’s temperatures in Lake Louise never topped -22ºC. “But the sun warmed things up and I was itching to get my first full (downhill) training run in. It ended up pretty good. That might actually have been one of my best training runs at Lake Louise.”

“The track is a little different than it has been in the past. The top and the bottom, there’s not a lot of snow at the top and bottom, so the terrain is quite bumpy,” explained U.S. Ski Team Men’s Alpine Head Coach Sasha Rearick. “The middle section is very nice, really well prepared and in good shape, so you can charge it. It’s been cold up here, but today was a nice day, sunny and bluebird skies.”

After the completion of the first training run, Svindal was on top with USA’s Miller just three-tenths back. Joining Miller in the top 30 were Ganong in 26, Nyman in 27 along with Ford, who attacked from the back from bib 88 to finish 29.

“I hadn’t skied on my downhill skis since the Olympics so I always kind of come up here and cruise the first run,” said Miller. “It was real cold and the snow was pretty unusual, but it’s fun to get back up to speed. I felt good.”

For Sunday, the U.S. start list is similar with Miller, Sullivan, Weibrecht, Ligety, Fisher, Ganong and Frank sliding into the start house. Based on their downhill training runs, the coaches will select an eighth starter for the U.S. with Nyman, Biesemeyer and Brandenburg vying for the spot.

The downhill race is scheduled for Saturday and the super G is set for Sunday. In Canada, CBC’s main network broadcast will be showing Saturday’s downhill race from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm MT. They will also broadcast the men’s super-G from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm local time and again 1:30 am to 2:30 am local time. Radio-Canada.ca will be showing races live on both days.