FREESTYLE:

USA's Cook, Belarus' Kushnir win in sketchy Moscow aerials conditions

Feb. 12, 2011 — CFSA

MOSCOW, Russia — Saturday night's FIS freestyle World Cup should have been spectacular, with the aerialists set to jump off a massive scaffold built specifically for them in Moscow’s famous Gorky Park. Unfortunately, all did not go as planned.

Gusting head and cross winds, a challenging site and a security sweep that forced the athletes and coaches off the site in advance of a visit from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, all worked against the athletes.

In the end, the aerialists got only ne competition jump each, and the vast majority of the men had to downgrade from their customary triple-twisting back flips to less spectacular doubles.

The key issue that hampered the jumpers was that the in-run, already short because of the nature of the manmade site, was woefully inadequate for the athletes to get enough speed once they were faced with high winds.

In fact, one of the few men to perform a triple, Anton Kushnir of Belarus, had to be “slingshotted” by two assistants from the top of the course to get enough speed to safely land his jump. He won the men’s category with a score of 119.91. The silver- and bronze-medal winners both performed doubles, with  Ukraine’s Stanislav Kravchuk and China’s Guangpu Qi tying at 102.57, Kravchuk took second place on the vote of form judges.

The Canadian men, facing the toughest conditions some of them have ever seen, all decided to significantly downgrade their jumps with the blessings of their coaching team.

“I was about to do triples until I saw a Chinese guy land on the knoll and chip his teeth,” said top-performing Canadian Travis Gerrits, who finished the day in 10th at 93.58, following a career-best sixth-place finish at World Championships last week.

Coach Dennis Capicik said, “I look at this way, when Team China downgrades to doubles, you know it was the right tactical choice, because those guys will go in almost any conditions.”

Remi Belanger was the next Canadian, in 15th position at 91.29; Jean-Christophe Andre was 16th at 88.65; and, Jonathan Vellner was 21st at 77.12. Capicik was impressed with the performance and attitude of these young team members, saying, “It was a little chaotic here today and our guys don’t have a lot of experience, but they adjusted. [Coach Daniel Murphy] and I were really happy with how they did considering the mental challenge of this event.”

World champion Warren Shouldice elected not to jump due to the inconsistent conditions.

On the women’s side, Emily Cook from the USA took the gold with a score of 93.06. Olga Volkova of Ukraine was second at 85.83 and China’s Xin Zhang was third at 84.10.

Canada’s top woman was Laval, Quebec’s Sabrina Guerin in sixth position at 78.43.

“It wasn’t my best performance but with the challenges here I’m happy with my result,” said Guerin. “The jump site here is really narrow and it was very stressful and scary.”

Crystal Lee was eighth at 75.91.

The FIS World Cup moves to Minsk, Belarus, on Feb. 19.

Moscow men's World Cup aerials results

Moscow women's World Cup aerials results