Alpine Skiing

John Kucera had to take the good news with the very bad.

Skiing's world downhill champion came out of a successful surgery to re-assemble a broken leg Sunday night and will begin rehabilitation as soon as possible to be ready for the post-Olympic season. That's the bad news - it will be the post-Olympic season, 2010-11, before Kucera can be back on skis. He won't be healed in time for February's Olympic Games.

The 25-year-old from Calgary, Alta., suffered fractures to both the tibia and fibula of his left leg Sunday in the Bombardier Lake Louise Super-G World Cup race. Alpine Canada medical director Dr. Christopher Irving said the surgical procedure at Banff Mineral Springs Hospital was successful.

Team officials expect Kucera to return to the team for the 2010-11 season, but the absence for the Vancouver Olympics at Whistler is a major setback. Kucera, apart from being the 2009 downhill world champion at Val d'Isere, France, was one of the country's best Super-G skiers and was considered a strong medal prospect for that event at Whistler.

"John is known as a ski racer with a determined approach to achieving his goals. We are confident that he will set about his rehabilitation process the same way that he has approached his career on the slopes," said Alpine Canada athletic director Max Gartner.

Kucera beat out Didier Cuche of Switzerland for his 2009 world downhill title. The 35-year-old Swiss veteran evened the score with a downhill victory at Lake Louise, Saturday. Kucera was sixth in that race.

Kucera, who started from 16th position in Sunday's Super-G lineup, fell when his skis slipped out from under him as he tried to negotiate a hairpin turn on the Fallaway part of the Super-G course on Lake Louise's Whitehorn Mountain. The race was delayed for about 30 minutes while Kucera was loaded into a basket and airlifted off the course by a helicopter which took him to the medical clinic at the base of the mountain.

Kucera had positive feelings about the Whistler Olympic runs. He'd scored a fifth place in the pre-Games giant slalom at Whistler in Feb. 2008 and figured Canadians enjoyed an advantage in frequent exposure to the Olympic track. "Every race in the past, in all conditions is money in the bank, right now," he said. "If I had to I could do it blindfolded."

Kucera finished third in the World Cup Super-G rankings in 2007 and was Canada's top Super-G performer on the World Cup circuit last year at ninth.

Kucera said his downhill world championship was the product of gathering up all his talents and skiing aggressively. He comes by his work ethic naturally. His parents Jan, an architect, and Zdena, who operates a dog-grooming business, emigrated to Canada from the Czech Republic in 1980.