Cuche leads men's training

Cuche finished the run in one minute and 47.80 seconds, more than half a second quicker than second-fastest Adrien Theaux, with Michael Walchhofer third fastest.

"I don't think it's giving a tone for the week but it's making me much more confident for starting the week," said Cuche, who won a Super G race at Beaver Creek in 2002.

"I'm quite happy with the run and looking forward (to) going fast."

Walchhofer's team-mates Klaus Kroell, Hans Grugger and Georg Streitberger finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

Erik Guay was seventh fastest ahead of American Bode Miller in eighth. Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud rounded out the top 10.

In the women's downhill training session in Lake Louise, Rolland set the standard before the women's World Cup race on Friday.

The Frenchwoman clocked 1:31.70 to top the timesheets ahead of the weekend's action in Canada.

America's Julia Mancuso was second, 0.34 seconds off the pace, with Andrea Fischbacher of Austria coming in third.

Current World Cup overall leader Maria Riesch of Germany posted the 13th-fastest time while Lindsey Vonn, a seven-times World Cup downhill winner in Lake Louise, ended the day in seventh.

Vonn has another two days to improve her speed, something she is confident of doing.

“Sometimes athletes have places where they feel at home and I definitely love Lake Louise,” Vonn told Universal Sports.

“It’s a great a great place for me, it suits my strength. It’s a place where I have a lot of confidence. I feel like I could go up there and not even inspect the course and I would be able to ski okay.”

1 ROLLAND Marion FRA 1:31.70

2 MANCUSO Julia USA 1:32.04

3 FISCHBACHER Andrea AUT 1:32.20

4 GOERGL Elisabeth AUT 1:32.32

5 MOSER Stefanie AUT 1:32.39

6 KAMER Nadja SUI 1:32.43

7 VONN Lindsey USA 1:32.46

8 PAERSON Anja SWE 1:32.47

9 FANCHINI Elena ITA 1:32.55

10 MAZE Tina SLO 1:32.71