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Whistler skier leads moguls effort

One medal and a strong team showing in World Cup

The Canadian mogul team didn’t win any medals at Mont Tremblant last weekend, but an unprecedented seven skiers made it through the qualifiers to the finals. With only the top-12 moving on, that means almost one in three finalists was wearing the maple leaf on Saturday.

In the women’s contest, the top finalist was Whistler’s Sylvia Kerfoot in sixth place overall. It was her best finish in a World Cup single moguls event, and just what she needed to get her skiing back on track after she missed the finals in the first event of the season.

"It gives me confidence for the rest season," said Kerfoot. "This really gets me back to where I wanted to be at the start of the season. I trained really hard in the off-season, so it was frustrating when my first event didn’t go the way I wanted it to."

Kerfoot has also been rehabilitating her back after a training injury. It’s not 100 per cent yet, "but I’m still working on it, and now I know that I can push it a little and still feel good."

According to Kerfoot, she barely squeaked into the finals in 10 th place. After meeting that goal, she decided to push herself a little harder. "I knew I had an opportunity for sure, and decided I could go a little bigger on my jumps and ski a little faster. I had a pretty good run, and my backflip iron cross felt nice and big, probably the biggest I’ve landed in a contest, so I was happy with that." Kerfoot’s top air was a 360.

Although it’s only been just over a year since the FIS allowed competitors to land backflips in competition, Kerfoot says most of the girls are using them these days. Part of the reason is that the degree of difficulty is higher than other jumps. The other part is a new rule change that athletes can’t do the same jump off both airs, forcing competitors to add new tricks.

Now that she knows she can make the finals and finish sixth, Kerfoot is hoping to improve even further in her next competition and finish in the top-five.

"I definitely want to better what I’ve started, and I plan to work on that and keep running in the right direction," she said. "We have the world championships in March, and I want to get better and better, ski a little faster, make my jumps a little bigger."

It will be hard to fit in training with athletes competing almost every week over the next two months leading up to the world championships. On the Jan. 21-23 weekend the team will be competing in Fernie before heading to Deer Valley in Utah. After that it’s Asia, Europe and the world championships in Ruka, Finland.

It’s a challenging schedule, one that Kerfoot says will force her to be away for three months straight. "This is why we train so hard in the off-season, because with such a condensed schedule this year we’re not going to get much time off to rest.

"On the national team there’s a feeling that we’re starting to break through, that the team is skiing amazing and it’s only a matter of time. We didn’t do as well as we wanted to (at Tremblant) but we still took a third of the spots in the finals of the women’s event, and three guys qualified as well. We’re right there."

The women’s event went to Nikola Sudova of the Czech Republic with a score of 25.39. Margarita Marbler of Austria was second in 25.09 and Hannah Kearney of the U.S. third with a 24.40. Kerfoot’s score of 22.89 was just 0.08 points out of the fifth position.

Montreal’s Jennifer Heil, the defending World Cup moguls champion and the winner of the first event this season, started strong with the lead qualification run but only managed to finish seventh. Kristi Richards of Summerland was 11 th and Elisa Kurylowicz of Manotick, Ontario was 12 th .

In the top-30, Stephanie St-Pierre of Victoriaville, Quebec was 15 th , Karine Simard of Quebec City 15 th , Jacqui Brown of Cambridge, Ontario 23 rd , and Audrey Robichaud of Val Belair, Quebec 24 th .

In the men’s competition, the U.S. team continued to dominate the podium with another sweep. Toby Dawson was first with a 25.50, Jeremy Bloom second with 25.34 and Luke Westerlund third with 25.29. Even fourth place went to an American, with Travis Mayer just missing the cut with a 25.11.

The Canadian skiers were led by Stephane Agnard of Quebec City in seventh, Jean-Francois Therrien of Laval, Quebec in eighth, and Marc-Andre Moreau of Chambly, Quebec, the top men’s qualifier, in 10 th .

In the top-30, Garrett Simm of Prince George was 14 th , Warren Tanner of Grimsby, Ontario in 16 th , Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau of Drummondville, Quebec in 22 nd , Colin Smith of Red Deer, Alberta in 24 th and Vincent Marquis of Ste-Foy, Quebec was 28 th .

The Canadian aerials team was led by Deidra Dionne of Red Deer, Alberta, who competed even though she underwent surgery on her left ankle three weeks before. Dionne shook off her pain to jump her way to a bronze medal on Sunday.

Lydia Ierodiaconou of Australia took the gold medal with a score of 194.18, followed by Nina Li of China with a 186.37. Dionne, 22, was third with a 180.34.

"It’s a little bit painful, but it’s a good pain because I know the surgery’s going to make it better," said Dionne, who had surgery to remove bone chips and scar tissue. "It’s nice to be back."

Veronika Bauer of Toronto also made the final in the top-10, finishing sixth overall.

Amber Peterson of Thunder Bay just missed the cut in 11 th place, while Melissa Prefontaine of Grande Prairie, Alberta was 20 th .

In the men’s competition, it was once again an American sweep – Ryan St-Onge, followed by Jeret Peterson, followed by Joe Pack.

Steve Omischl of North Bay, the overall World Cup champion from last season, was fifth.

"I’m pretty happy as long as I can build momentum and keep getting better every week," he said.

"This is the best training I’ve ever done, so I’m not worried. I just have to put those jumps down in competition."

Jeff Bean of Ottawa was 11 th in his first contest since he broke his neck in training last September. Ryan Snow of Calgary was 21 st , Ryan Blais of Grande Prairie 25 th , and Kyle Nissen of Calgary 27 th .