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Women's air force nets two medals

Bean denied by Canadian judge The freestyle aerials event has led to another scandal and another victory for Canada in this Olympics, just not in that order. Things couldn't have been better on Feb.

Bean denied by Canadian judge

The freestyle aerials event has led to another scandal and another victory for Canada in this Olympics, just not in that order.

Things couldn't have been better on Feb. 18, the day Canada went from the mid-teens to the top 10 in the medal standings.

Aerialists Veronika Brenner of Shannon, Ontario, and Deidra Dionne of Red Deer, Alberta, took the silver and bronze medals in Olympic aerials competition. It wasn't a surprise really; both Brenner and Dionne have a number of World Cup medals to their credit, and have shown that they can medal at any contest.

Brenner and Dionne were in first and second with scores of 190.02 and 189.26 until Australia's Alisa Camplin emerged from beneath the shadow of Jacqui Cooper, her teammate and a three-time World Cup champion, to take first place with a score of 193.47. Cooper blew out her knee in training a week before the Games.

The three took their spots in the finish circle at Deer Valley and crossed their fingers. There were still two jumpers to come.

Things looked better when Alla Tsuper of Belarus, the World Cup champion this season by a long stretch, failed to stick the landing of her second jump and dropped into ninth place. The last jumper was Russia's Olga Koroleva, who posted the best score of any of the aerialists on her first jump. She made a solid effort, but played it a little too safe. Her degree of difficulty wasn't high enough to hold onto the top spot and she dropped into fourth.

"It went so slowly. It was like time had stopped, everything in slow motion, but it was definitely worth the wait," Brenner told CBC reporters. "It's incredible to stand on the podium with one of my teammates. As well as Alisa, who's a friend of mine."

Brenner is an incredible comeback story, missing most of the 2001 season after injuring her knee in November of 2000.

"This time last year, I was still learning how to walk without a limp," she said.

This year the 27-year-old has made up for lost time with a gold, a bronze and four top-10 results this season. She now has an Olympic silver medal on top of her 26 career World Cup medals, including 14 victories.

Brenner and Dionne were in fourth and fifth after their first jumps. Dionne nailed a full double full jump for 100.28 points, the highest score of the finals.

"I knew I had it," said Dionne. "I just told my coach 'This is it, this is the one.' I just went for it and I knew I could land it and do well. I just needed to put it to my two feet and I did that today."

Dionne finished third in the overall World Cup standings this year with one bronze and three fourth-place finishes on the season. At 20-years-old, she is already one of the top aerialists in the country, finishing third at the World Freestyle Ski Championships in Whistler last year.

There's another interesting Whistler connection for Dionne. After having her skis stolen in Whistler while she was training here, local ski company Fanatyk Co provided her with a new pair and helped her out with some new boots.

In a post-event interview with CBC she made a point of thanking Fanatyk Co and the people of Whistler for supporting her.

The third Canadian to reach the finals, Toronto's Veronika Bauer, didn't have as much luck that afternoon. She caught an edge on her inrun, and as a result didn't have enough momentum going into her jump. As a result she had trouble with her landing, and finished the day in 10th place.

Despite being one of the most dominant teams on the World Cup circuit, the freestyle team couldn't get a break at the previous Olympics in Nagano. The women's team had never won a medal in Olympic competition until Monday. For Dionne, 2002 makes up for a lot.

"Our team is one of the dominant ones and Nagano didn't go as planned. To come back here to pick up some redemption, and to pick up some medals, shows that our program is still strong," said Dionne.

The men's competition on the following day provided Canada with another scandal to ponder but this time it wasn't the conduct of foreign judges that was suspect. Ottawa's Jeff Bean missed the podium and a bronze medal by 22/100ths of a point, and it was the Canadian judge who might have low-balled our athlete.

While four other judges gave Bean between 6.0 and 6.4 for his air, a full-double-full-full on his second jump, the Canadian judge, John Buhler, gave him a 5.9. If he had been given an average of the other judges' scores, he would have won a medal.

Bean showed how mild-mannered Canadians can be when he smiled, shrugged off the score, and said it was time to start training for 2006.

"I came through," the 25-year-old told reporters. "This is what it is all about. Being on this stage, being up there, performing under pressure. I did it. I pulled it out. When I landed my first jump I thought the score would be higher. But I put myself in a position to be judged. I chose this sport. I have to accept that.

"I did the best jumps of my life. How can I be upset?"

Beam is another aerials come back story, spending two years in the gym to rehabilitate the leg he broke in competition in December of 1999. He started slowly last year, but this year came on strong. Most recently he won a bronze medal in Whistler.

Vancouver's Andy Capicik, competing in his last Olympics, performed two solid jumps to finish in eighth place. Steve Omischl of North Bay, Ontario, slapped back on his first jump and ended the day in 11 th place.

The big story of the day was Czech jumper Ales Valenta, who landed the first event quintuple twisting, triple flipping jump – a full twist better than the next hardest jump on the circuit. There was a slight bobble in his landing, but most athletes felt he deserved a spot on the podium for the effort.

Joe Pack of the U.S., last year's world champion, won the silver medal. Alexei Grichin of Russia, the man who ruined a podium sweep by the Canadian team at Whistler, ruined Bean's chances by finishing in third with a score of 251.19. Bean had 250.97.