The 24-year-old from Provo, Utah, covered the 3,136-metre course in one minute, 49.88 seconds in the second training session for Saturday's World Cup downhill.

``I improved in areas where I was horrible yesterday, but there were some areas where I messed up today that I was great in yesterday,'' Nyman said. ``It's a training run. That's the beauty of downhill.

``It's not just one day. It's three days of preparation for the big day.''

Austrian Christoph Gruber, who was the fastest in the first training run Wednesday, was second in 1:50.1.

Swede Patrik Jaerbyn was the 35th skier down the hill and vaulted into third in a time of 150.66.

Manuel Osborne-Paradis of Invermere, B.C., was the fastest Canadian for the second straight day, finishing tied for 22nd in 1:51.86.

``I have a really good touch in the flats and everything,'' Osborne-Paradis said. ``It helps me out because, technically, I wasn't that great.''

After varying light conditions in the first training session, Thursday's round was held under sustained cloudy skies, which made it tougher for the skiers to gauge the terrain.

``Today, it's pretty flat all the way down and I was getting rattled hard,'' Nyman said.

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.

``It's great to see Nyman with some speed,'' Miller said. ``It's setting up to be a great race. There's lot of guys who have speed and look comfortable.''

Lake Louise has an abundance of snow for the season opener and more is predicted before Saturday's downhill and Sunday's super-G.

Temperatures are expected to plummet by race day with a high of -20 C.