LAKE PLACID, NY (Jan. 17) - U.S. aerialists all kinds
of problems Friday with only Olympian Jeret Peterson (Boise, ID)
and Kelly Hilliman (Tonawanda, NY) making it into finals on the
opening day of the chilly Sprint U.S. Freestyle Grand National
World Cup. Russian Dmitri Arkhipov won the men's contest while
Olympic champion Alisa Camplin of Australia was the women's winner.
ESPN will broadcast coverage of the aerials competition Feb. 13
at 3 p.m.
Erratic conditions had athletes competing in snow showers, sunshine,
flat light, and gusting winds. Temperatures were in the mid-teens
as the final round got underway but it got colder as the sun moved
to the west and the MacKenzie-Interval Olympic Jumping Complex
went into gray light.
Camplin, who tied with Belarussian Alla Tsuper in the first round
of jumping at the Nature Valley Challenge, went on to win with
187.43 points and took
over a World Cup leader. Tsuper was second at 182.01 with Nina Li of China
third (179.82) while Hilliman was 11th 142.83.
Arkhipov was fourth in qualifying for finals but nailed a quad-twisting
triple (back double-full, full, full) to win with 239.85 points.
Second place went to Steve Omischl of Canada with Xiaopeng Han
of China, ninth in qualifying, moving up to third. Peterson, 12th
in qualifying, was seventh (216.68).
Defending World Cup champion Eric Bergoust (Missoula, MT) was
14th while Olympic silver medalist Joe Pack (Park City, UT) finished
16th after each had a poor landing on his first jump.
"It's a horrible day, just horrible," said U.S. Head
Coach Jeff Wintersteen. "We were 'there' - we had great training,
things were rolling our way and we were going to ramp-up DD [degree
of difficulty] for Pack and Bergy in the second round...but they
didn't get there. The speeds were good, everything looked good;
they just didn't land 'em and if you don't land your jump..."
LAKE PLACID, NY (Jan. 18) - Travis Cabral (South Lake Tahoe,
CA) ignored sub-zero cold to win his second World Cup moguls event
of the season Saturday with Luke Westerlund (Breckenridge, CO)
fifth in the Sprint U.S. Freestyle Grand National at Whiteface
Mountain. Aiko Uemura of Japan led qualifying and went on to collect
her first victory with Emiko Torito (Englewood, CO) in fourth place.
Sub-zero cold greeted the athletes - "It was -32 when we
got up and we were, like, 'Oh my gosh, it's like Finland," Cabral
said - but temperatures warmed to just above zero by the final
runs in early afternoon. "We train for this and it's not a
problem," he added.
Cabral, who won the opening event of the season in Tignes, France,
received 26.79 points for his final runand Olympic champ Janne
Lahtela of Finland was runnerup (25.80) with Canadian Pierre-Alexandre
Rousseau was third.
LAKE PLACID, NY (Jan. 19) - Canadian Ryan Blais won the
first World Cup of his career Sunday, finishing less than a point
ahead of Belarussian Dmitri Dashinski and fellow Canadian Jeff
Bean with Jeret Peterson (Boise, ID) as the top U.S. aerialist
in sixth place. Olympic medalist Nannan Xu of China took the women's
World Cup lead by winning the women's event on the final day of
the Sprint U.S. Freestyle Grand National.
Blais, who was hoping to qualify for Canada's team which will
compete at the 2003 World Championships later this month at Utah's
Deer Valley, had 242.77 points for his two jumps. Dashinski finished
with 241.84 and Bean, the men's World Cup leader, had 241.80.
Peterson, who clinched a spot on the '02 Olympic Team a year ago
by finishing fourth in the first of two aerials meets at Lake Placid,
was sixth with 220.58 points and Brian Currutt (Park City, UT),
nursing an injured right elbow, finished 10th at the MacKenzie-Intervale
Olympic Jumping Complex.
But Olympic medalist Joe Pack (also Park City) and defending World
Cup champion Eric Bergoust (Missoula, MT) struggled with their
landings for the third straight meet. Bergoust was 23rd and Pack
24th.
Xu won with 182.29 points with teammate Nina Li, second Friday
in aerials, second again (179.69) and Alla Tsuper of Belarus, third
Friday, third again. Kate Reed (Montrose, CO), who led the qualifying
round, slapped back on her final jump and dropped to ninth with
Kelly Hilliman (Tonawanda, NY) in 10th place.
"I don't think it's time to panic," Head Coach Jeff
Wintersteen said. "The bottom line is the whole team doesn't
suck and we're just got to work on a few things. We're going to
be going over all kinds of options, starting immediately."
He said Peterson, who rejoined the World Cup tour a week ago at
Mont Tremblant, Que., after taking classes at the University of
Utah during the fall, "keeps getting better and better, and
Kate's just got to learn how to close the deal when she leads going
into finals. But she's also 18, so this is part of the learning
curve." |
