CARRABASSETT VALLEY – Comeback Week continued Monday at the U.S. Alpine Championships.

There’s room to argue over whether it’s T.J. Lanning or Bryon Friedman who may boast the longest list of debilitating injuries among men on the U.S. Ski Team.

On-course bragging rights go to Lanning, for now. One day after the oft-injured Friedman finished second in super-G, surgically-scarred Lanning left his boot prints on the top step of the podium with a downhill victory. “This is my first national championship,” Lanning said. “I’m 23 now, and I made the U.S. Ski Team when I was 15, so you can count. There were a lot of years where I didn’t ski at all because of injuries – three years in a row.”

Lanning’s medical chart from 2003 to 2005 reads like a chapter from the Biblical book of Job, in which the namesake was permanently under siege from the fickle finger of fate.

First, Lanning tore the ACL and meniscus in his left knee after hitting a rut during a Europa Cup giant slalom in Switzerland. His next season ended prematurely due to a right ankle injury that cost him a trip to the Junior World Championships.

Two ruptured disks in his back required corrective surgery and cost Lanning almost his entire 2004-05 campaign.

Sugarloaf gave Lanning’s recovery a kickstart two years ago, when he skied to a runner-up in super-G and sixth in downhill at the U.S. championships. “The surface is impeccable,” Lanning said of the Narrow Gauge track. “You couldn’t ask for a better surface.”

Europe was equally kind to Lanning this winter, yielding a win on the Europa Cup circuit in Switzerland.

The Montana native now skiing out of Park City, Utah, sipped more than a cup of coffee in World Cup, as well.

“I scored points in three events this year in super combined, super-G and downhill,” said Lanning. “I’m just trying to get my technical skiing back together and hopefully become a five-event skier again.”

Simply being on skis for a full winter was worth more to Lanning than any gold medal.

“This was the first time in five years,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll keep things rolling like it is, onto Worlds next year and hopefully make the (2010) Olympic team.”