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Peterson, Omischl get wet in winning

Freestyle aerialists hold summer competition in Quebec
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Amber Peterson

Amber Peterson and Steve Omischl were the victors at the third edition of the Mondial Acrobatique on water ramps on Saturday, Aug. 4 at the Centre national d’entraînement acrobatique Yves Laroche (CNEAYL) in Lac-Beauport, Quebec.

Double Canadian aerials champion Peterson earned her first summer title at the Le Relais ski centre in only her second year at the Mondial acrobatique.

“This victory puts a little more experience under my belt,” she said. “It was a really fabulous day and the weather was perfect! The crowd was really noisy, cheering us on. It was really motivating. Also, the facilities are fantastic and the volunteers did an amazing job. It was great!”

Peterson beat Quebec competitors Sabrina Guérin and Geneviève Tougas, who are both members of the national freestyle development team.

On the men’s side, Omischl beat out his former national teammate, the recently retired Jeff Bean. Albertan Ryan Blais, another member of the national team, finished third.

“It feels good to defend the title I won last year, but more important still was to give the crowd a good show,” said Omischl, who has done his summer training at CNEAYL for the past three years.

“Jeff (Bean) is a good friend and I don’t like to compete against friends, because there can only be one winner. All we wanted here was to do great jumps and have fun, no matter who won.”

More than 1,500 spectators watched the competition.

Nicolas Fontaine, national development team coach, said he enjoyed watching the excellent jumps executed by the young athletes. Other than Guérin and Tougas, development team members Olivier Rochon and Rémi Bélanger were also competing.

“They did jumps up to triple back flips with triple twists. They’re just about at World Cup level now,” said Fontaine. “Because they were doing jumps into water, they were able to execute manoeuvres with a high degree of difficulty.

“This is a very interesting competition because kids as young as 12 years old had the chance to be in action against Steve Omischl, a world champion. This is a way to bring together elite athletes and the next generation.”

Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, vandals broke into and ransacked the CNEAYL offices, making away with computer equipment. To help compensate for this loss, Omischl rallied other medallists and each donated half of their prize winnings to the centre, for a total of $2,500.

“We train often here in the summer and we wanted to help them, because they work on a volunteer basis for us,” said Bean. “This is really a special place, so we’re doing whatever we can to help.”