Lake Louise (AB), Canada – It’s downhill day today in Lake Louise and the U.S. Ski Team men have been looking strong. With Steven Nyman (Sundance, Utah) and Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, Calif.) racking up a series of top-10 results in training runs, the American Downhillers are ready to kick off the speed season.

Nyman and Ganong have been leading the American charge with Nyman taking a fifth, eighth and a fourth in training runs, and Ganong a ninth, a second and a sixth place. And you can’t count out Marco Sullivan, who took fifth in last year’s Lake Louise downhill and has had two podiums there in the past. They’ll be up against Norwegians Kjetil Jansrud and Aksel Lund Svindal, who traded off wins in training, and Canadian Erik Guay, who returns to the World Cup after injury.

“It’s always nerve-wracking the first [training run]. You’re like, ‘Ugh. Where do I stand?’ We’ve been training with the Norwegians this fall and I’ve been right there with them, so that’s nice to know,” Nyman said during training this week. “And then the first training run, they just let us have it.  But I had a lot of mistakes and then yesterday, I tried some new skis and skied really well, actually, but the skis weren’t that fast. Today I went back on a similar set up to my race set up and had two big mistakes and still was pretty fast. I’m happy with the way I’m skiing. I need to clean those mistakes up and I know I can push for the top.”

Along with U.S. skiers Andrew Weibrecht, Wiley Maple and Bryce Bennett, there will also be a fresh face out there today: Drew Duffy, 2015’s super G national champion from Warren, Vt.,, will be skiing his first-ever World Cup at Lake Louise. Jared Goldberg and Ted Ligety will sit out this weekend in Lake Louise and shift their focus towards Birds of Prey next week.

“We’ve been training really well as a team, but we’ve been missing that pace everyday in training,” added Ganong. “Now that we’re training with the Norwegians, we know where to gauge ourselves and how we’re skiing. It makes us relaxed come race day; we know we’re fast and competitive… Everything works really well. They’re really knowledgeable and our coaches are really knowledgeable and everyone is working together and everyone is skiing fast on team Norway and USA.

“It’s getting smoother and better snow every day. It’s not slick anywhere—it’s just really nice compact, firm winter snow. It’s a fun surface to ski on and it’s going to be a good race,” Ganong concluded.

Live stream the men’s downhill on NBC Sports Live Extra starting at 1:30 p.m. ET or catch it on Universal HD at 7 p.m. The super G will stream Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Live Extra.