FREESTYLE:

Aerialist Shouldice mines gold for Canada’s 9th medal at freestyle worlds

Feb. 4, 2011     ♦ Photo: Canada's Warren Shouldice (Mike Ridewood, CFSA)

DEER VALLEY, Utah — Warren Shouldice joined the ranks of the great Canadian aerialists Friday night by winning the World Championships title and scoring a perfect score on his most difficult trick.

Sitting in seventh position after his first jump of two, Calgary, Alberta’s Shouldice was hoping he could score high enough with his lay, triple full, full – a quadruple twisting triple backflip – to put him onto the podium. But when he landed his signature trick and looked up to the scoreboard, he couldn’t believe what he saw – a perfect score of 139.50 for that jump – bringing his total score to 253.66 and giving him a convincing lead over second-place finisher Qi Guangpu of China (250.95).

Last season’s overall points leader Anton Kushnir was third at 249.63.

“Even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined putting down a second jump like that to hear that score, 139.5, I’ll remember that for the rest of my life,” said a stunned Shouldice right after the event. “We’ve had so many great athletes in the past – like Nico Fontaine and Steve Omischl – and now you can add me to that list. It’s unreal. I feel honored to do well and represent my team and my country the way I have.”

Alluding to the successful week Canadians have been having, with nine medals to date at the FIS Freestyle World Championships, Shouldice said, “Those mogul guys, the ski cross guys set the bar really high, so luckily I was able to come through as well and it’s just been the best week of my life.”

Travis Gerrits also had a great day, as the 19-year-old from Milton, Ont., landed in sixth at 230.45, a very respectable score considering his degree of difficulty is considerably lower than most of the other competitors. He said, “I’m really happy, I did two awesome jumps, (Shouldice) just won, this might be one of the happiest days of my life. I didn’t have that big of expectations coming into this event and I did the best I could have done with the DD I have right now.”

On the women’s side, China’s Shuang Cheng and Mengtao Xu took the top spots at 188.40 and 188.23, respectively. Olga Volkova of the Ukraine was third at 178.59.

Canada’s lone athlete in the women’s finals, Crystal Lee from Queensville, Ont., also had a respectable 10th place showing at 143.36 in her first World Championships event.

“I landed four jumps in a row so that’s pretty awesome,” said Lee. “I couldn’t really ask for much more. I’m building my confidence with every landing.”

Canada also performed very well in the ski halfpipe Friday, qualifying six athletes into Saturday's 12-athlete finals.

Squamish B.C.’s Mike Riddle qualified first in the men’s event with an enormous double cork 1260 and back-to-back switch 900s in his run. He will be joined in finals by teammates Justin Dorey, who qualified seventh, and Noah Bowman, who finished the day in 10th. Matt Margetts faltered and did not advance to finals.

On the women’s side, Keltie Hansen was the top Canadian with a huge 900 in her run, while Rosalind Groenewoud and Sarah Burke qualified third, fourth and sixth, respectively. Burke and Groenewoud are coming off X Games medals from last weekend.

Coach Trennon Paynter is “pretty stoked” about the team’s chances Saturday.

World Championships action continues Saturday with the halfpipe finals at 11 a.m. MT and dual mogul qualifications at 4:45 p.m. MT, finals at 7:30 p.m. MT. S-Magazine