Erik Guay says the Canadian men's ski team does not enjoy a home-mountain advantage at Lake Louise, even though he won his first ever World Cup medal on this hill.

``Definitely not. That's something they need to work on in Canada,'' Guay said Thursday after a training run for Saturday's World Cup downhill.

``You go to Austria and these guys would have been training on the hill 10 days in advance. They would have had 15 training runs.

``The mountain would have been doing everything possible to get them on the hill and give them as much as an advantage as possible. You just don't see it here.''

The 25-year-old from Mont-Tremblant, Que., is Canada's most decorated male skier in the speed events in the last three years with four podium finishes on the World Cup circuit.

His first was at Lake Louise in 2003, when he won a silver medal in the downhill.

Lake Louise Mountain Resort hosts the season-opener in the World Cup speed events with the downhill Saturday and a super-G Sunday.

Warm weather and lack of snow has been an issue in some years, but not this time as snow has been falling steadily and the base was up to 124 centimetres Thursday.

Guay said he was limited to a couple of ski tests on the course last week.

``If it would have been a warm year I would have understood,'' he said. ``They probably could have pushed a little more and got us on the hill.

``I'd definitely say there's no such thing as home-mountain advantage for Canadians.''

The director of the Canadian alpine team said the last day his team could be on the hill prior to Wednesday's first training run was last Thursday, because International Ski Federation rules don't allow teams on the hill after that.

``I think we got the maximum we could,'' Dusan Grasic said. ``Everybody tried as much as possible to get us what we did get.

``We were on the snow before the rest of the nations.''

Guay was 29th in Thursday's training session.

American Steve Nyman was the fastest in one minute, 49.88 seconds, ahead of Austrian Christoph Gruber, who was quickest Wednesday, in 1:50.41.

Swede Patrik Jaerbyn was the 35th skier down the 3.1-kilometre course, yet vaulted into third in a time of 1:50.66.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis of Invermere, B.C., was the fastest Canadian for the second straight day, finishing tied for 22nd, almost two seconds behind Nyman.

Calgary's John Kucera was 25th, Jan Hudec, also of Calgary, finished 27th, Francois Bourque of Pin-Rouge, Que., was 34th, Gareth Sine of Calgary placed 43rd, Jeffrey Frisch of Mont-Tremblant was 44th and Stefan Guay of Mont-Tremblant, Que., was disqualified.

Of the eight skiers, six will be chosen to race Saturday by Canadian team coaches.

Benjamin Raich of Austria, the defending World Cup overall champion, was 10th and Olympic gold medallist Antoine Deneriaz of France was 18th.

Bode Miller of the U.S. was 13th after finishing fourth in the first run.

Guay was second in super-G and third in the downhill last December in Val-Gardena, Italy.

A leg injury a month out from the Olympic Games hampered his training and forced him to withdraw from the Olympic downhill, but he managed to shake off the rust and finish fourth in the super-G.

Guay feels he's ready to stand on the top of the podium, instead of beside the winner.

``It is hundredths of a second you are playing with,'' Guay said. ``They are hard to find, but you just have to really pursue it and try to be perfect on race day.''

© The Canadian Press, 2007