FREESTYLE:

Shouldice on top of game as aerials showdown set in Calgary

Jan. 28, 2011 — CFSA    ♦ Photo: Warren Shouldice finished second in aerials qualifications Friday (Mike Ridewood, CFSA)

CALGARY, Alberta — The high-flying Canadian aerials squad put on a huge show for fans at the Canada Post Grand Prix at WinSport Canda’s Canada Olympic Park on Friday. By the end of the qualifications, seven Canadian acrobats earned spots in Saturday's finals of the FIS World Cup.

Leading the Canadian men’s team was hometown favourite Warren Shouldice, who qualified second to China’s Qi Guangpu. Renato Ulrich of Switzerland was third.

Shouldice will be joined in the 10-man final by teammates Rémi Bélanger, Jean-Christophe André and Travis Gerrits, who made a huge recovery after falling on his landing on the first jump of the two-jump qualifications.

Shouldice, just coming back from a minor knee injury, said, “I jumped pretty well today, so it does give me a little bit of an advantage going into tomorrow. I feel pretty good right now and I jumped OK today. I imagine it will take more than I did today to be on the podium tomorrow, so I’m going to have to clean my landings up a bit and that should hopefully put me on the podium.”

Red Deer’s Jonathan Vellner just missed making qualifications after a couple of rough landings. He ended the day in 14th position.

On the women’s side, while USA's Emily Cook, Mengtao Xu (China) and Olga Volkova (Ukraine) took the top three spots of the day, both of Canada’s entries have berths in finals.

Sabrina Guérin qualified in fifth spot and Crystal Lee was eighth.

Guérin, who had a bad crash in training earlier in the week, said, “I’m really happy with what I did today — putting two jumps on my feet is always my goal. I can say that I rebounded a bit from my fall earlier in the week. My plan for tomorrow is to do the same thing, two good jumps on my feet and good landings.”

If you can’t be at Canada Olympic Park to watch the free events, you can watch the best moguls and aerials athletes in the world compete Saturday in Calgary on the live webcast at http://www.sportsnet.ca/more/freestylegrandprix/.

Moguls finals start at 10:30 a.m. MT, aerial finals start at 2 p.m. MT.  S-Magazine