Lake Louise (Canada) (AFP)

One year to the day after a heavy fall and broken ligaments in his right knee, Germany's Thomas Dressen made an incredible comeback in the Alpine Ski World Cup by winning the Lake Louise downhill in Canada on Saturday.

On November 30, 2018, Thomas Dressen had completed his descent from the Birds of Prey in Beaver Creek, Colorado, into the safety nets after a heavy crash. Assessment: rupture of the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments of the right knee, and a dislocated left shoulder. Obviously, his season, which had just started, was already over.

Exactly one year after this terrible accident, here it is again at the top, winner of the descent of Lake Louise in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta.

"I did not think it was like this, it's madness," the 26-year-old German, winner of the prestigious Kitzbühel downhill race in January 2018, told the Austrian television broadcaster at 39 years of famine on the German side.

"Many things must come together, the slightest mistakes are fatal, but for now, everything has been perfect," he added.

His end of the race, with his qualities of excellent slider, was masterful to fill 30 / 100th of delay that he had on the Italian Dominik Paris, then better time to two thirds of the course.

He finally won with two hundredths of a lead over Paris and twenty-six over the Swiss Beat Feuz and Carlo Janka, who share third place.

The skier of Garmisch-Partenkirchen thus signs his third World Cup victory, since in March 2018 he also won in Norway at Kvitfjell, on the track of the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.

Yet Dressen's feelings since the beginning of the week in Alberta were not ideal, "a little diminished and sick," he explained.

With his second place, Dominik Paris has perfectly launched his season in pursuit of the French Alexis Pinturault and the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen in the quest for the big crystal globe, again open after the retirement of the Austrian Marcel Hirscher, eightfold holding the Alpine Ski World Cup.

The Sunday super-G will offer a new opportunity for Paris, but also for Janka, to assert their claims on the overall standings.

On the French side, Adrien Théaux took 9th place, only accompanied by Johan Clarey (13th) in the top 15 at Lake Louise.

© 2019 AFP