At the finish of the Lake Louise downhill in November, Swiss ski star Didier Cuche was seen on TV applauding American Andrew Weibrecht. 

Cuche, 35, was leading the men’s downhill — and would eventually win the race — and Weibrecht had just crossed the line in 12th. It was an astonishing result given that the 24-year-old American was the 62^nd skier to start.

So why was the lofty Swiss skier, who heads to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games as one of the favorites, applauding an American 11 years his junior?

Because Weibrecht has tried to model himself after Cuche.

“I have a lot of respect for [Didier] being built the same way I am and what he’s done in the ski racing world,” said Weibrecht, while on a break before the 2010 Winter Games.

Neither Weibrecht and Cuche look like stereotypical downhillers. While every speed skier on the U.S. Ski Team is over six-feet tall, Weibrecht tops out at 5-6 and 180 pounds. Cuche is a hair taller at 5-9 and 196 pounds.

Their relationship extends beyond similar stature. Weibrecht made a name for himself on the World Cup tour in 2007. In his World Cup downhill debut, he rocketed from 53^rd to finish 10th. His run was so wild — and reminiscent of other wild runs like Franz Klammer at the 1976 Olympics or Bill Johnson’s wild ride at Wengen, Switzerland, before he won his gold medal in 1984 — that it became a YouTube hit.

But Cuche, already a three-time Olympian and two-time overall World Cup downhill champion, was less impressed.

“Last year, he definitely chastised me for taking so much risk and never really thinking about what I was doing,” Weibrecht confessed.

This happened when Weibrecht “got stuck” in the gondola with Cuche when the World Cup tour stopped in Val Gardena, Italy.

“He was telling me about his experience and how he spent maybe the first five or six years of his career crashing into fences and blowing up,” Weibrecht said. “He finally figured out how to make it all work.”

With seven top-20 World Cup finishes so far this year, Weibrecht looks like he’s on his way to figuring out how to make it all work too.