China, Canada claim aerial wins in Lake Placid World Cup; U.S. shut out

By Published On: June 7th, 2004Comments Off on China, Canada claim aerial wins in Lake Placid World Cup; U.S. shut out

China, Canada claim aerial wins in Lake Placid World Cup; U.S. shut out{mosimage}So much for home field advantage. Competing for the first time this season on home snow, at Lake Placid on Friday, the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team failed to qualify a single skier for the aerial finals. That hasn’t happened before when there have been any U.S. skiers in attendance.

China dominated the women’s event with Jiao Wang collecting her first-ever World Cup win and Nina Li getting her seventh career second-place finish without a win. Aussie Lydia Ierodiaconou got third, but Chinese skiers also finished fourth (Xin Xin Guo), eighth (Shaung Cheng), ninth (Shaungfei Dai) and 12th (Nannan Xu) filling up half of the finals positions. Russia took three more.

Canadian Steve Omischl got the men’s win, the fifth of his career and third of the season after back-to-back wins in the openers back in September. Czech Olympic gold medalist Ales Valenta was second and Belarussian veteran Dmirti Dashinski third.

The finals results for the men were a bit more spread out, geographically, than for the women, but not that much. Canada had two other finalists (Kyle Nissen in eighth and Jeff Bean in ninth) the Belarussians had two others, (Timofei Slivets in seventh and Alexei Grichin in 10th). China got fourth from Xiaopeng Han, Russia had Dmitri Arkhipov in fifth, Austria had Christian Rijavec in sixth, the Ukraine had Enver Ableaev 11th and Swiss Christian Kaufmann got the final spot.

“This was unacceptable, just unacceptable, no excuse,” said U.S. aerial coach Matt Christiansen. … It’s very frustrating. Everyone’s fighting the cold, so that’s certainly no excuse.”

Eighth after the qualifying round, Wang needed a little help to win and got it from high wind, changing snow conditions and Ierodiaconou, who could not land her second jump. She had registered a personal best 100.28 on her first, then had to deal with a strong tail wind on her second. “I knew I was too high, and stretched as much as I could to slow it down, but it wasn’t enough,” she said. “I had a great opportunity to win today, but couldn’t capitalize on it.” She wound up at 172.52 to Wang’s winning 183.61 effort.

Omischl posted a 246.01, a creditable score considering the conditions. He pulled out a triple twisting triple somersault for his final jump and landing beautifully. “I think,” he said, “that’s the best I’ve ever jumped in a clutch situation. It was about a point from perfect.”

The Americans were a time zone or two away from perfect. Top U.S. female was Sharlee Strebel in 15th — a darn good result, since this was her first World Cup. Neither Kate Reed nor Kelli Hilliman, the team’s leaders, got a scored run for the day. Joe Pack, returning from back injury, led the men in 16th, with Jeret Peterson 19th, Matt Saunders 24th and Ryan St. Onge 27th.

Freestyle World Cup
Lake Placid, New York
January 16, 2004
Women’s Aerials

1. Jiao Wang, CHN 183.51
2. Nina Li, CHN 182.24
3. Lydia Ierodiaconou, AUS 172.52
4. Xin Xin Guo, CHN 170.92
5. Anna Belikh, RUS 164.54
6. Anna Zukal, RUS 164.26
7. Deidra Dionne, CAN 161.87
8. Shuang Cheng, CHN 159.05
9. Shuangfei Dai, CHN 155.97
10. Elizabeth Gardner, AUS 148.68
11. Olga Koroleva, RUS 140.56
12. Nannan Xu, CHN 89.10
In qualification:
13. Assol Slivets, BLR 78.05
14. Veronika Bauer, CAN 77.56
15. Sharlee Strebel, USA 76.38
16. Manuela Mueller, SUI 75.91
17. Christina Craddock, USA 74.02
18. Evelyne Leu, SUI 73.39
19. Lainie Cole, AUS 70.32
20. Amber Peterson, CAN 68.51
21. Alisa Camplin, AUS 61.94
22. Kayo Henmi, JPN 56.26

Men’s Aerials
1. Steve Omischl, CAN 246.01
2. Ales Valenta, CZE 236.29
3. Dmitri Dashinski, BLR 224.07
4. Xiaopeng Han, CHN 219.95
5. Dmitri Arkhipov, RUS 217.64
6. Christian Rijavec, AUT 215.07
7. Timofei Slivets, BLR 208.49
8. Kyle Nissen, CAN 208.03
9. Jeff Bean, CAN 206.34
10. Alexei Grichin, BLR 195.99
11. Enver Ablaev, UKR 195.03
12. Christian Kaufmann, SUI 193.18
In qualification:
13. Yuriy Zukal, RUS 98.41
14. Vladimir Lebedeva, RUS 97.65
14. Warren Shouldice, CAN 97.65
16. Joe Pack, USA 96.34
17. Stanislav Kravchuk, UKR 96.12
18. Ryan Blais, CAN 95.45
19. Jeret Peterson, USA 94.34
20. Martin Walti, SUI 92.78
21. Thomas Lambert, SUI 91.98
22. Cord Spero, CAN 91.00
23. Andreas Isoz, SUI 90.92
24. Matt Saunders, USA 88.41
25. Sen Qiu, CHN 88.33
26. Anton Kushnir, CZE 86.64
27. Ryan StOnge, USA 86.33
28. Renato Ulrich, SUI 83.37
29. Aurelien Lohrer, FRA 81.89
30. Evgeniy Brailovskiy, UZB 80.75

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About the Author: Pete Rugh