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Canadians add more medals to close out season

Whistler skier injured after career-best result

Sports is all about highs and lows, but usually not in the same week, as Whistler’s Syliva Kerfoot experienced on the freestyle World Cup tour.

After winning the second World Cup medal of her career in the Czech Republic on March 3 — her first silver, and her first medal in nine seasons — Kerfoot injured a medial collateral ligament in a training run on March 8 at Are, Sweden. She returned home this week to be assessed, and has been told that the ligament will heal. She may require some orthoscopic surgery to repair her meniscus, however, and is likely to be out six to eight weeks.

“That’s sports,” said a resigned Kerfoot on Tuesday, returning to Whistler this week to begin the recovery and rehabilitation process.

“I’m fortunate that I haven’t had any knee injuries in the past, when they’re actually pretty common in this sport. This is my 10 th year on the tour so I have to consider myself lucky at this point that I haven’t been injured, and that this injury wasn’t worse. I tried to go a little too big, I guess, and kind of lost it on the landing.

“The fact that (the injury) happened right after my best result makes it hurt less, if that’s possible. I’m bummed to miss the last race in Italy, the World Cup finals, and the last three events.”

Kerfoot has heard that it will likely take six to eight weeks to recover, which means she won’t miss any of the mogul team’s on-snow training camps starting in May.

In the meantime, she says she was happy to be able to contribute to one of the team’s best season on the World Cup circuit, despite the fact that top performers Jennifer Heil, Kyle Nissen and Ryan Blais have been sidelined with injuries.

“I think we’ve gotten medal performances (in moguls) from six or seven athletes this year, and it was pretty exciting to be a part of the team and to be able to contribute to that is a great feeling,” she said.

Moguls, aerials and ski cross events have been attracting huge crowds this season, including 35,000 in Moscow to watch an aerials event two weeks ago. The events are also getting a lot more television coverage since FIS changed the rules for moguls to allow for more difficult and inverted tricks.

“There’s definitely a lot of excitement, and it’s a great sport for Canadians to be able to follow,” said Kerfoot. “Our coverage here has been very good this year, and that’s because freestyle skiers win medals for Canada. It’s exciting to carry that through to Vancouver (2010) and know we’re going to be one of the teams to watch. There are a lot of expectations, and we want to rise to the occasion.”

Rise the Canadians did in the last week of regular World Cup competition, with the team heading to the finals in Italy this week. Italy, the host of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, is hosting World Cup finals in alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, freestyle and the Olympics this year.

In Are, Sweden Kristi Richards ended her medal drought to win a silver medal — her best performance of the season after winning two bronze medals at the start of the season.

The gold went to Aiko Uemura of Japan, her third straight win, while Emiko Torito of the U.S. won her third consecutive bronze medal.

Maximi Dufour-Lapointe was sixth for Canada, while her younger sister Chloe placed 10 th . Audrey Robichaud was 11 th .

For the men, Whistler’s Dale Begg-Smith — competing for Australia — won gold, edging out Nathan Roberts of the U.S. and Dmitriy Reiherd of Kazakhstan. Alex Bilodeau was the top Canadian in sixth place, Pierre-Alexandre Roussea was 14 th and Warren Tanner of West Vancouver 16 th .

In dual moguls, Vincent Marquis shrugged off a disappointing result the day before to earn a bronze medal. Dmitriy Reiherd took the gold, upsetting World Cup points champion Dale Begg-Smith in the final dual of the day.

“Yesterday I didn’t ski well at all,” said Marquis. “I was charging a lot in practice, then I was caught off-guard by the changing (snow) conditions.

“The result today was good. I wasn’t in the final in the last three contests… so today’s result is a good confidence booster.”

Marquis sits fourth in the overall medals rankings.

Pierre Alexandre-Rousseau placed sixth, Alex Bilodeau was ninth, and Warren Tanner 11 th .

On the women’s side, Richards placed fifth, Chloe and Maxime Dufour-Lapointe were seventh and 10 th and Audrey Robichaud was 12 th .

Aiko Uemura won yet again, defeating Nikola Sudova of Czech Republic in the final dual. Kayla Snyderman of the U.S. won the bronze medal.

In the aerials competition at Davos, Switzerland, Canada’s Steve Omischl won his sixth gold medal out of nine contests this season, while teammate Warren Shouldice picked up the silver medal and his second podium of the season.

“We killed it,” said Omischl. “Huge scores and we earned them. It was probably one of the nicest jumps in my career, and the same for Warren.”

Dmitri Dashinski of Belarus won the bronze medal, just missing the silver by about a quarter of point.

It was almost a disaster for the team after Omischl had an allergic reaction the night before the competition because a bun he ate contained traces of nuts. He was given proper medication by team doctor Doug Nottebrock, and did not have to go to the hospital for treatment.