Fear no factor for Fisher at Lake Louise

Two years ago, Erik Fisher's World Cup season ended before it began when he crashed in the season's first downhill at Lake Louise and blew out an ACL. But you don't hear regret when he recalls the accident that delayed his full-time status on the circuit a full year.
    
"I learned a lot from that whole experience and was able to mature and grow," said Fisher. "It wasn't a bad thing. I'm a better ski racer because of it."
    
Fisher made an impressive breakthrough last season, earning his first top-10 result at Val Gardena and just missing the top 10 in his first trip to Kitzbuehel, the Super Bowl of ski racing. When he returns to Lake Louise to compete in an FIS World Cup this weekend, making the Vancouver Olympic team in downhill will be a realistic goal.

"Of course I think about it," said Fisher, 24. "Athletes who say they don't are crazy and have mental issues. They're just saying that for whatever reason they need to say that. I've thought about it, what an honor it'd be to do that and be part of such an amazing event. But I've got to focus on the World Cup season. That's how I make it there."

It will be difficult to make that team, not just for Fisher but everybody in the running, because the U.S. men's downhill team is deeper than ever. Seven guys will be gunning for four spots in the marquee event of the Winter Olympics.
    
Bode Miller has won seven World Cup downhills and was the world champion in 2005. Steve Nyman and Marco Sullivan both have won World Cup downhills, and each has been on the podium three times. Scott Macartney has been on the podium twice.
    
But the next generation -- Fisher, T.J. Lanning and Andrew Weibrecht -- is pushing hard from behind. The best illustration of the team's depth in downhill came at Val Gardena last season when five made the top 10, an unprecedented achievement for the team. Miller was second, Sullivan fourth, Fisher seventh, Nyman ninth, Lanning 10th and Macartney 15th.
    
"If those young guys get it together and figure it out, they can do some pretty incredible things," Nyman said. "We know Marco, Mac, myself and Bode can win and get on the World Cup podium. But T.J. easily could win World Cups. Fisher was on his way to probably a podium in Kvitfjell before he crashed last year. 'Fish' is just figuring it out."
    
Blessed with a downhiller's body at 6 feet, 220 pounds, Fisher played fullback and linebacker in high school ("I either cleared out the hole or stuffed up the hole.") When it's time to stick his nose in an intimidating downhill, he knows how to deal with risk.

"I don't think I try to block it out, I just kind of put it in the back of my mind and think if I get to that finish line and I do everything I know I can, it's going to be worth the risk I'm taking to do it," Fisher said. "You just focus on that and do what you've trained your life to do."
    
The Olympic selection process, which is based on World Cup performance, begins Saturday in Lake Louise. But the final selection may come down to performance in downhill training at the Olympics, as it did four years ago when Nyman, Sullivan and Macartney raced for two spots. Miller and Daron Rahlves had nailed down the other two spots before arrival in Torino.

Fisher was in a training run race-off for start positions at Lake Louise last year and lost out, but he won a position in training a week later at Beaver Creek and scored the first World Cup points of his career by finishing 28th. Then he went back to Lake Louise and won a pair of NorAm downhills before heading to Europe.

With its multiple jumps and the famous "Camel Bumps," Val Gardena last season reminded Fisher of his younger days as a motocross racer, and he used that to his advantage.

"It's really just that feeling of being like a motocross track, knowing when you've got to give it a little more speed so you can clear the next roll," Fisher said. "There's the famous Camels there. You fly 60 meters, and when you pass over the highest point you're over 30 feet in the air. And you're doing 80 mph. It's a pretty surreal feeling, coming over that Camel and knowing you've got to clear the next one."

Fisher pulled off another impressive performance a month later at Kitzbuehel, finishing 11th after Hermann Maier edged him for 10th by 0.04 seconds. Not bad for a kid racing the world's most intimidating and prestigious downhill for the first time.

"I'm like, 'Well, I guess if Hermann knocks me out of the top 10 at Kitzbuehel by a couple 'hunnies,' I can't complain,'" Fisher said.

Kitzbuehel is intimidating enough, but in the final training run Swiss skier Daniel Albrecht crashed coming off the final jump and sustained a severe head injury. He would be in an induced coma for three weeks.

Fisher had been wearing bib numbers in the 50s, but with Albrecht out of the race, Fisher's World Cup points put him in the top 30. And in the random bib draw, he pulled bib number two. That meant he would be the second man down in the world's scariest downhill, with no course report from a teammate.

"I don't think I slept very well," Fisher said. "I was tossing and turning a little bit. Actually, it's tough to sleep there because where we stay is right down in town and it is a party outside. There were fireworks going off at four in the morning, so it's tough to get much sleep."

It didn't help that he almost crashed in his first trip down the notorious Mousefalle, a narrow elevator-shaft jump just moments into the race.

"It was crazy," Fisher said. "Not only starting second in the Kitzbuehel race my first time there, [but] I was able to pull everything together and end up 11th.  It was a lot of fun. My mom was there and some friends were there. It was a special moment for sure."

There probably will be many more. With his downhiller's mentality, physique and raw athletic ability, Fisher could become one of the team's top downhillers with a little more seasoning.

"I grew up doing things that pushed myself, whether it was kayaking or riding dirt bikes," Fisher said. "Whatever I was doing, I was doing it as hard and as fast as I could. That might be why I've had a couple of speeding tickets."

Definitely a downhiller's mentality.