Alpine skiing picks up speed this week

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With the Winter Olympics in northern Italy now just two months away, alpine skiing's World Cup tour hits another gear this week as Colorado's Beaver Creek hosts the first downhill race of the season along with a speedy super-G. Meanwhile, the lone Canadian stop on the circuit is taking place at Quebec's Mont Tremblant, which will stage a pair of women's giant slaloms.

Since Canada's best hopes for an Olympic alpine medal are on the men's side, let's start there.

Crawford, Alexander eye Olympic podium

The downhill and super-G are known as the "speed" disciplines. They're the fastest, the most dangerous and, for the average fan, the most exciting. Though the World Cup season began six weeks ago, every race but one so far has been either a slalom or a giant slalom — the "technical" disciplines. The lone exception was a men's super-G last Thursday at Colorado's Copper Mountain. 

Following that soft launch, the speed season really gets going this week at Beaver Creek, which features a men's downhill on Friday and a super-G on Saturday before closing with a giant slalom on Sunday.

The Canadians to watch in the speed races are Jack Crawford and Cam Alexander, who are expected to challenge for medals at the Olympics this February in the Italian Alps village of Bormio, which will host all of the men's alpine races.

Crawford, 28, was a great surprise at the 2022 Games in Beijing. Despite having never won a medal at the Olympics, the world championships or even on the World Cup tour, he raced to a bronze in the (now defunct) individual combined event, placed sixth in the