LAKE LOUISE, Alta. - Among the fastest men in training for the Lake Louise World Cup downhill, Erik Guay felt there was even more speed in him.

It had been 20 months since his last race, but Canada's most decorated downhiller finished third in Wednesday's practice run. Norwegians Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud were first and second respectively.

The season-opening men's downhill is Saturday followed by Sunday's super-G at the mountain resort west of Calgary.

Guay owns 22 World Cup medals and a world downhill title from 2011. But the 34-year-old from Mont-Tremblant, Que., did not race in 2014-15.

His left knee took longer than expected to respond after a pair of knee surgeries in the spring of 2014. So Guay was encouraged by both skiing fast and feeling he had more to give Wednesday.

"I don't feel like I pushed that pace at all today," the Canadian said. "I wanted to have a good, solid, strong run with some good feelings and I think I attained that, but I also felt like there was a lot reserved.

"I think my focus here is just to really try to improve training run to training run, find my race pace and kind of re-establish myself among the elite skiers in the world."

Training runs are scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

Jansrud is the defending Lake Louise champion having swept the downhill and super-G last year. Svindal is a four-time winner at the resort, but didn't race a year ago because of a torn Achilles' tendon.

Svindal's time was one minute 49.51 seconds and Jansrud's was 1:50.23. Guay covered the 3.1-kilometre track in 1:51.14.

"As you can see with Jansrud and Aksel, there's still quite a bit of time to find in there," Guay said. "I have to say for the first run in months, I'm pretty happy."

Manny Osborne-Paradis of Invermere, Alta., was second in last year's downhill and is also the last Canadian to win in Lake Louise when he claimed super-G gold in 2009. He was 13th on Wednesday.

"There's always a chance to podium here," Osborne-Paradis said. "Lake Louise is tough because sometimes the guys with the biggest chance make the biggest mistakes and they're so far out of the podium here. It's a course that suits me."

Calgary's Jan Hudec skipped training to have knee treatments. The Olympic bronze medallist in super-G is expected to participate in Thursday's training.

Ottawa's Dustin Cook won super-G silver at this year's world championship, but his season was over before it began. Cook underwent surgery for torn knee ligaments sustained while training in Austria last month.

The first training run had sunny skies and a temperature of minus-24. With temperatures expected to rise and no snow forecasted prior to race day, the course will harden and get quicker.

The men got in just one training run in 2014 before a major dump of snow wiped out the next two that were scheduled. Jansrud and Osborne-Paradis were one-two in that lone training run and again in the downhill race.

Weather conditions look favourable for a full trio of training runs this year, which Guay wants and needs.

"This year, certainly I need the three runs," he said. "You look at the times and yeah, it's great I'm third, but really I am missing some mileage."

Osborne-Paradis would be fine with just two practice runs at every race, but says he wouldn't skip a third at Lake Louise.

"History always shows this course changes so much, so if you didn't do the third, it's a lot harder on race day," Osborne-Paradis. "It gets bumpier."

As the host country, Canada can enter up to seven men in the downhill and eight in the super-G.

Jeff Frisch of Mont-Tremblant was 20th in training. Calgary's Tyler Werry finished 34th, Broderick Thompson of Whistler, B.C. 50th, Morgan Pridy of Whistler 60th, and Ben Thomsen of Invermere 70th.

In addition to valuable points in the race for the season's coveted World Cup overall title, there's $286,000 in FIS prize money available in Lake Louise this weekend. A win in downhill or super-G is worth about $54,000.