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World Cup: Big finish for Canadian snowboarders

Ricker, Anderson score wins at season finale

Canadian snowboarders finished the season with a medal run at Valmalenco, Italy, taking five medals in snowboardcross, halfpipe and parallel giant slalom.

Snowboardcross was on Friday, and Whistler's Maëlle Ricker managed to finish the season where she started, standing on top of the podium with a gold medal. It was her third podium in the last four races, coming after a string of fourth place finishes. Teammate Dominique Maltais, recovering from a series of injuries, finished a close second.

"It's definitely a good day for Canada," said Ricker. "The final race was pretty exciting. I had a good start and took the lead before Dominique passed me on the flats. I took her over in the hip-jump section of the course for the win. We had a good race from top to bottom together.

"The season was good. Lots of finals and top-fives, so I definitely have to be happy and pleased with that. There are some things to improve on next year as well. I think the biggest one is my focus before the big finals after having worked hard all that day."

Ricker was the defending overall champion heading into the season, but relinquished that title to Lindsey Jacobellis of the U.S., who finished the season with five victories. Ricker wound up second in the standings.

The bronze medal went to Zoe Gillings of the U.K.

On the men's side, the top Canadian was Francois Boivin in eighth place, with Robert Fagan ninth. Michal Novotny of Czech Republic took the win, followed by Nick Baumgartner of the U.S. and David Speicer of Germany.

The halfpipe finals were Saturday. It's been a tough season for Canada's World Cup halfpipe team, with little financial support for the athletes and bigger fields at competitions working to earn quota spots for 2010. Five different Canadian men have managed podiums this season, with Crispin Lipscomb, Justin Lamoureux, Jeff Batchelor, Brad Martin and Dustin Craven earning medals, but it's been dry for the women's team.

That changed in Italy, where Squamish's Sarah Conrad picked up the team's only medal of the finals with a bronze medal performance. It was her best result since returning from injury.

"The season got off to a slow start but definitely picked up near the end," she said. "Podiums are a good way to shut it off and hopefully we'll get some more next year."

Conrad finished her season ranked 13 th .

Whistler's Mercedes Nicoll was close to winning a medal of her own with a fifth place finish.

Jiayu Lui of China took the win, as well as the overall World Cup title. She was followed by Holly Crawford of Australia.

On the men's side, no Canadians qualified for the finals. Ryan Rausch of Whistler posted the best Canadian result, 22 nd place.

Gary Zebrowski of France took the gold medal, followed by Nathan Johnstone of Australia and Xiaye Zeng of China. Ryoh Aono of Japan took the overall title.

The final event was the parallel giant slalom. Quebec's Jasey-Jay Anderson picked up his second consecutive win, this time edging out Benjamin Karl of Austria in the final duel. Siegried Grabner of Germany won the bronze.

"I got my two best runs of the day against Karl," said Anderson. "I knew I had to do that to win. I wasn't expecting to make it that far in the rounds. In the semis, Seigfried and I were tied after the two runs, but since I was the one catching up to him the duel went my way to move on into the finals."

Matthew Morison placed fifth for Canada, securing himself a guaranteed spot in the 2010 Games. Anderson also has a guaranteed start at the Olympics.

On the women's side, Caroline Calve earned the first podium of her career with a silver medal. She won every round to make the finals, where she lost to World Cup champion Amelie Kober of Germany.

In total, the Canadian snowboard team won 23 medals this season. Their last event as a team is the Canadian Snowboard Nationals, which take place on Mont-Tremblant from March 29 to April 4.

Freestyle team back on the podium at finals

The Canadian Freestyle Ski Team had another successful season on the World Cup tour, winning the overall Nations Cup title by a huge margin over the second-place U.S. team.

With that under their belts heading into the World Cup finals at La Plagne, France, the team settled in for another solid weekend of competition.

In ski cross, it was Canada's Stanley Hayer that led the charge this week with a third place finish behind Tomas Kraus of Czech Republic and Armin Niederer of Switzerland. Whistler's Dave Barr got his revenge for being blocked out of the finals by winning the small final to place fifth. Chis DelBosco was eighth.

On the women's side, it was rookie Kelsey Serwa's day as she picked up the silver medal behind World Cup champion Ophelie David of France. Squamish's Aleisha Cline was fifth, and Whistler's Ashleigh McIvor ninth. As usual there is more to the story.

It was a disappointing day for Cline, who was solid from the start but got tangled up with Austria's Katharina Gutensohn in the semifinals. In just a few races Gutensohn has made herself the least popular racer on the tour, and has had several protests lodged against her for dangerous moves and contact on the course. While the crash relegated both Cline and Gutensohn to the small finals, Cline proved that she was the better skier with a win in that heat.

McIvor was also on pace to add another medal to her collection, and was leading her quarterfinal heat until she hit a rut and was thrown wide on a turn. Serwa capitalized on that to move into second place and advance to the semi-finals.

Serwa also had a bit of luck in the semifinals when the two skiers in front of her in the finals crashed, propelling her into second place.

In the finals, Serwa showed she doesn't need luck to race and nearly beat Ophelie David for the hole shot out of the start. She stayed on the World Cup leader's tails to the bottom while fending off the other racers.

In dual moguls, Alexandre Bilodeau added another gold medal to his collection, as well as the overall freestyle championship title. He was followed by Guibaut Colas and Pierre Ochs of France. Vincent Marquis was fifth, Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau ninth and Maxime Gingras 12 th .

"I'm really pleased with my performance today," said Bilodeau. "I didn't have any bad runs all week in training and that's what I wanted to replicate today in the competition."

In the women's dual, Chloe Dufour-Lapointe edged out her sister Maxime for the bronze medal, while Margarita Marbler of Austria edghed Nikola Sudova of Czech Republic for the win. Jennifer Heil placed fifth, missing her chance to win the overall World Cup globe by 68 points.

There was also a halfpipe event at La Plagne. Rosalind Groenwoud was the top Canadian, in third place, while Mike Riddle was the top male skier, in fifth place.

The final events of the season are the Canadian Nationals on Cypress Mountain, March 29 to 29.

Harvey continues to lead Canadian XC team

It was a banner season for the Canadian cross-country ski team, with four men earning medals in World Cup competition and the rise of former junior champion Alex Harvey to the top ranks of the sport in January. At the World Cup finals in Falun, Sweden, Harvey came close to winning medals in three events.

In the men's 3.3 km prologue event, Harvey placed eighth, just four seconds back of the bronze medal winner. Teammate George Grey was 19 th .

In the men's 20 km pursuit Harvey was eighth once again, 10 seconds off the bronze medal time. Devon Kershaw was 21 st , Ivan Babikov 29 th and George Grey 30 th out of 83 racers.

In the men's 15 km freestyle handicap race, Harvey cracked the top-10 once again to place fifth, this time just 5.5 seconds out of third place.

Finally, in the men's 40 km marathon race - an event where Harvey earned a bronze medal the previous week - Harvey placed sixth, less than six seconds back of the podium.

"I didn't expect anything that happened this year," said Harvey. "If someone told me in January you will get a couple of top-10s this year I would have said 'hold on - let's worry about top-30 first.'

"I am training to be an all-around skier and have dreams to win the overall World Cup title one day so it is good to see I am competitive in all races and the training is paying off. Who knows - maybe in a few years that dream will come true."

Sara Renner also wrapped up her season on a positive note after taking off the previous season to start a family. She finished consistently in the top-20, and moved up into the top-10 in several events. She was 33 rd in the marathon.

She also raced without teammate Chandra Crawford, who took the season off to heal from an injury.