Solid weekend for Whistler's Janyk siblings

January 10, 2011

Eric MacKenzie
eric@whistlerquestion.com

Britt Janyk has started to produce some consistent results on the alpine World Cup circuit in the past few events, while younger brother Michael had a return to form on the weekend as well.

Britt had a pair of top-15 finishes Saturday and Sunday (Jan. 8 and 9) at Zauchensee, Austria that came on the heels of a 13th-place showing in her last race before Christmas, while Michael secured his best finish of the season when placing fifth in slalom at Adelboden, Switzerland on Sunday.

Britt raced to 15th spot in Saturday's downhill and trumped that Sunday when reaching ninth place in super-G.

Wearing bib No. 2, Britt finished the super-G run in one minute, 14.26 seconds to be seven-tenths off the podium and place in the top 10 of a World Cup race for the first time in exactly one year.



Marie-Michele Gagnon was 30th and Georgia Simmerling placed 35th to round out the Canadian showing.

Britt Janyk had the top Canadian finish in Saturday's downhill as well, finishing slightly more than two seconds behind winner Lindsey Vonn.

Michael Janyk's fifth place highlighted a strong day for the Canadian men's technical team, as Brad Spence and Trevor White both cracked the top 20 as well.

The 28 year old was fifth after the first run and finished in that position despite adding more than a second to his second run. It's the first time Janyk has completed both runs of a World Cup race this season.

Janyk, who matched his best result from last season when he had three fifth-place finishes, rebounded from a tough outing at the Zagreb, Croatia slalom on Thursday (Jan. 6), when he missed qualifying for the second run by less than a tenth of a second and placed 33rd as the top Canuck.

No Canadian men qualified for the second run of Saturday's giant slalom at Adelboden, including Janyk, while fellow Whistlerite Robbie Dixon sat out the race with a suspected concussion.

Look for a more complete wrap of the Janyks' weekend performances in the Jan. 13 issue of The Question .