FREESTYLE:

Gerrits tops Nor-Am aerials, Guerin 2nd

Dec. 19, 2010 — CFSA

PENTICTON, B.C. — Canada picked up two more gold medals in Nor-Am aerials action Sunday, with Sabrina Guérin on top of the women’s field for the second day in a row, and Travis Gerrits winning the men’s division after taking home the silver Saturday.

Conditions were difficult. A fast surface on the in-run gave athletes more height than they expected in the air, ultimately affecting their ability to stick their landings.

That was the case for Laval, Quebec’s Guérin, who, despite her two wins this weekend, was not happy with her performance Sunday after poor landings on both her jumps. It was her high degree of difficulty and her clean lines in the air that earned her a winning total score of 125.23.

Alexa Devereaux and Alison Lee of the U.S. took the second and third spots with respective scores of 123.18 and 122.40. Other Canadian national team results were Stéphanie Pratte of Quebec City in seventh at 91.43 and Crystal Lee of Newmarket, Ont., in eighth at 82.66.

Guérin, whose season goal is to land two jumps in a row in competition, said, “At the end of the day, it’s nice to see I can podium at Nor-Ams, but I can’t really appreciate a first place finish today because I didn’t land well.”

Conversely, Milton, Ontario’s Gerrits, was very happy with his first career Nor-Am win. Sunday he scored a total of 198.98 with two triple-twisting double backflips and just narrowly missed his goal of breaking 200 points. Coach Nicolas Fontaine was thrilled with the calibre of Gerrits’ jumping this weekend and said, “To have a score like that on a day like today, this early in the season, that’s amazing.”

Gerrits, who normally competes triple backflips, downgraded his jumps for this weekend’s competitions due to a shoulder injury that affected his early season training. He said, “The win feels great, and I have realized that being safe and downgrading my [degree of difficulty] and making it look nice can be very rewarding.”

Maoya Tabara of Japan was second at 180.11, Michael Rossi of the U.S. was third at 175.71 and Canadian team rookie Samuel Bélanger-Dallaire of Lac Beauport, Que., was fourth at 160.45.

Other Canadian placings: Montreal’s Jean-Christophe André (and Saturday’s winner) in sixth at 158.15; Rémi Bélanger of Mascouche, Que., in seventh at 155.06; Jonathan Vellner of Red Deer, Alta., in 11th at 137.97; and, Marc-Antoine Labbé-Giguère from Quebec City in 17th position at 114.67.

Inaugural Canada Post Cup Selections a huge success in Quebec

VAL ST. COME, Que.  — Sunday marked the end of the Canada Post Canadian Selection series. The two-event, single mogul competition was the first of the Canada Post Cup events and the culmination of a week of training for National C Team members and provincial team members from across the country.

According to Canadian Freestyle Ski Association High-Performance Director David Mirota, the idea behind the week at Val St. Côme was to give provincial mogul coaches and their athletes a chance to work with national team coaches. In all, 50 athletes and 10 coaches from B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec trained, brainstormed and learned from each other.

“I think the week was really worthwhile,” said Mirota. “There was a lot of positive dialogue and really good exchange of technical information and talent identification amongst the coaches. The goal is that those provincial coaches will now take that information home and filter it down to the club level.”

Results from this weekend’s Canadian Selections can be found at: http://www.freestyleski.com/page.php?la=en&pa=team&id=schedule. Canada Post Cup standings can be found at: http://www.freestyleski.com/page.php?la=en&pa=team&id=mogul-cup 

S-Magazine