Music: {allcanada} CANADIAN WOMEN'S SKI TEAM THIN ON MEDAL POTENTIAL

LAKE LOUISE, Alta. -- You can almost hear crickets chirping around the Canadian women's alpine ski team at Lake Louise.

A perfect storm of retirements and injuries have left the host country with no medal prospects for the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup downhills and super-G this weekend.

In fact, the Canadians could be hard-pressed to put a woman in the top 30.

The Canadian women haven't won in Lake Louise like the men have, but they've still managed four podium finishes since 2006.

While women from this country are moving up the international rankings in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom, the cupboard on the speed team is virtually bare.

Two developmental team racers -- Sarah Freeman of Pincher Creek, Alta., and Tess Davies of Canmore, Alta., -- participated in Wednesday's training run for the first of two downhills starting Friday.

"Right now, we're kind of looking at 'Oh my God, we have no speed,"' Alpine Canada president Max Gartner said.

Davies, 20, was 54th and 19-year-old Freeman finished 59th in training. They'll make their World Cup debuts in Friday's downhill.

Marianne Kaufmann-Abderhalden of Switzerland was the fastest in training in a time of one minute 54.37 seconds. Daniela Merighetti of Italy was second, 0.38 seconds back. Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. was 0.48 seconds behind the leader in third.

Emily Brydon won silver and bronze in the Lake Louise downhills two years ago. The Fernie, B.C., native retired after the 2010 Winter Olympics. Britt Janyk of Whistler, B.C., a bronze medallist in 2007, did the same after last season.

Kelly VanderBeek, a bronze medallist in super-G in 2006, has yet to return to racing. The Kitchener, Ont., skier has undergone two knee surgeries since crashing in Val d'Isere, France, just weeks out from the Winter Games.

Larisa Yurkiw of Owen Sound, Ont., was considered the heir-apparent behind Brydon, Janyk and VanderBeek. She also seriously injured her knee in Val d'Isere, just one day before VanderBeek.

VanderBeek, 28, and Yurkiw, 23, have both started skiing again, but neither were ready to race Lake Louise.

"I'm hoping to be racing this year," VanderBeek said Wednesday. "I'll need another month or month and a half of training before I'll be race-ready."

Prior to the Winter Games, Alpine Canada established a women's "2010 Acceleration Team" to develop female racers and push the women ahead of them on the national team.

While that project helped stock the technical team with slalom and GS talent, the speed team has yet to benefit much from it.

Kelsey Serwa and Georgia Simmerling were prospects on the 2010 Acceleration Team, but have since switched to ski cross.

Serwa, from Kelowna, B.C., won this year's world championship in ski cross. Simmerling, from North Vancouver, B.C., raced at Lake Louise last year and then defected to that discipline.

Ski cross falls under Alpine Canada's jurisdiction, so success there is good for the organization. It's just not helping a women's speed program that once produced world champion Melanie Turgeon and Olympic downhill champion Kerrin-Lee Gartner.

Marie-Michele Gagnon of Lac-Etchemin, Que., has posted top-10 results in World Cup slalom and giant slalom. She and Madison McLeish of Canmore, Alta., are expected to join Davies and Freeman in Sunday's super-G.

Skiers such as Gagnon, 22, may eventually excel in speed events. Gartner would rather she mastered slalom and GS before focusing on downhill and super-G.

Rushing young skiers into speed events is dangerous, so it will take time to rebuild the women's team, he said.

"We have to be extremely patient," Gartner said. "We could take some of our best skiers and say 'OK, you're going to become downhillers' and what we would get is a whole bunch of injuries again.

"While I would like to have results tomorrow, I think on the women's speed side, we have to look long term and make sure they're good enough skiers to develop mentally and physically to the point where they're ready."

He points out that overall World Cup champion Maria Riesch-Hoefl of Germany and multiple world champion Anja Paerson of Sweden had success in technical races first and then speed events.

"The downhills have changed," he said. "You have to be a better technical skier now."

The men's speed and technical teams, as well as the women's technical squad, all receive funding from Own The Podium, which doles out money based on a sport's Olympic medal potential. The women's speed team currently receives no money from OTP.

"That's where we need to get out and find some money that's not OTP-related and start investing ourselves," Gartner said.

In the meantime, the Canadian team needs VanderBeek and Yurkiw back racing to foster and inspire skiers such as Freeman and Davies.

VanderBeek, working as a television broadcaster at Lake Louise, accompanied the two racers during their course inspection Wednesday and offered advice.

But VanderBeek isn't yet able to race down the mountain and provide them valuable feedback just prior to their runs, which is guidance VanderBeek once received from Turgeon.

On the bright side for Davies, a lack of veterans on the national speed team means the door is wide open for her to make her mark.

"It's as much an opportunity as it is a bit of a disadvantage," Davies said. "We don't have those veterans to look up to, but who knows? We probably wouldn't be starting if we had those veterans in here.

"It's pretty cool to get to start. I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity I get."