FREESTYLE:

Canada’s Turski scores silver as ski slopestyle makes debut at world champs

Feb. 3, 2011     ♦ Photo: Kaya Turski of Montreal with her silver medal in slopestyle (Mike Ridewood, CFSA)

PARK CITY, Utah — Australia's Anna Segal won the women's slopestyle event at the World Freestyle Ski Championships on Thursday, as competitors from seven different countries put on a show they hope will land the sport in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Canada's Kaya Turski took the silver.

Segal won with 43.40 points over Turski (41.70). American Keri Herman grabbed bronze with a 41.0 score on her second run.

Alex Schlopy won the men's slopestyle event, scoring 41.8 points in his hometown of Park City to edge Winter X Games gold medallist Sam Carlson (41.50). Australia's Russ Henshaw was third (41.20) after a solid second run.

Slopestyle is a veritable obstacle course of rails, jumps and other features — much like you would find in a terrain park at most ski resorts — that athletes navigate while executing a series of exciting and challenging tricks. Slopestyle is judged by a panel of five judges who look at the “overall impression” of the run; each judge allocates a score out of 10 and the five scores are added together.

Turski, 22, is a former freestyle inline skater who turned to skiing about six years ago. She posted a best-of-two-run score of 41.70 in the finals.

Turski, coming off a gold at X Games last week, said, “I’m very happy, I landed my run and I skied how I wanted to ski. It’s an honor to be part of the first ever World Championships for slopestyle and I hope we put on a good show and I hope that the IOC is stoked on us and that we’ll go forward to the Olympics.”

FIS Secretary General Sarah Lewis said that FIS remains “optimistic” about both slopestyle and halfpipe’s inclusion to the Games.

IOC slopestyle and halfpipe observer Walter Siebert commented that he found the Park City event “very well-organized” and explained that one of the key focuses for the IOC is on the judging format for the new disciplines.

Siebert acknowledged that the IOC does like objectively won sports, sports that rely on time or distance to determine results, but said that does not count out judged sports. To this end he said, “The IOC has quite a lot of judged sports and I think over the past 15 years (international federations) have improved tremendously when it comes to judging sports, and I think we will see less and less controversies during the Games and the World Championships as we go forward. But it is true that the IOC looks closely to how the sports are judged because we want to be sure that the field of play is fair for everybody.”

Siebert said he expects the IOC to make a final decision this April, to give teams three years to prepare if necessary.

Freestyle World Championships action continues Friday with the aerials finals.

An International Olympic Committee official was on hand to watch the finals. A decision will be made in April on whether to include the sport at the Sochi Games. S-Magazine

 — The Canadian Press and CFSA contributed to this report