Ski Racing - February 8, 2010

Freestyle

Warren Shouldice, Ryan Blais, Kyle Nissen and Olivier Rochon finished 2-3- 4-6 — season highs for all.

Only Peterson (10th) made it to the 12-man final round for the home team. Teammate Dylan Ferguson, who had been on a hot streak with two consecutive top- 10 finishes, missed the final and landed in 17th place. Fellow American and defending world champion Ryan St. Onge was 23rd and failed to reach his first final round of the season.

U.S. aerials head coach Matt Christensen said he was frustrated with the team after the Lake Placid showing. “I’m not mad or anything,” he said. “The quality of jumps all week has been extremely high, the competition jumps have just been a big letdown.” Talk about a letdown: veteran Canadian jumper Ryan Blais, a FIS athlete representative, had his best event of the season in Lake Placid with a third-place finish. Blais and several members of the Canadian coaching staff were under the impression that his third-place result had qualified him for his first Olympic team. But moments later, officials confirmed that Blais was on the losing end of a tiebreaker with teammate Oliver Rochon. Though the two aerialists had identical World Cup point totals, when the data was fed through the complicated Olympic nomination protocols, Rochon’s results gave him a microscopic edge. This was the second consecutive time Blais missed the Olympic team by a narrow margin. Rochon was also bumped off the 18-per- son Canadian Olympic quota list two days later by members of the dominant Canadian ski cross team. Only Nissen, Omischl and Shouldice made the Canadian Olympic men’s aerials team.

American spirits, meanwhile, turned the corner at the Olympic team announcement four days later. Peterson, Ferguson, St. Onge and newcomer Matt DePeters were named to the team along with Cook, Schnoor, Lindsey and last-minute quota addition Ashley Caldwell.

“Out of the three Olympics I’ve gone to, this is the best my whole team has jumped as a whole,” said Christensen at the announcement. “In the past two Olympics our team was No. 1, everyone was looking at us, and that’s a lot of pressure. It’s really hard to hold on to that carrot when you’re No. 1. It’s definitely a lot easier to chase after that carrot than to hold on to it for a month.”

Mont Gabriel Aerials, Jan. 30

Kushnir and Li won the overall World Cup titles with victories at the last
competition of the season Jan. 30 in Mont Gabriel, Canada. Kushnir didn’t
miss a podium all season and won the last three consecutive competitions
to claim his first career globe. With two wins and three more podiums, Li
grabbed her second career title.

Blue Mountain Ski Cross, Jan. 20

The Canadian ski cross team is having a monster year ( 13 World Cup podiums) just in time for the sport’s Olympic debut on home turf. The streak continued as the World Cup tour landed in North America for competitions in Blue Mountain, Ontario, and Lake Placid.

Though the wins at Blue Mountain went to Austrian Andreas Matt and Norwegian Marte Hoeie Gjefsen (her career first), seven Canadians landed in the top 10.