Sauze d’Oulx, Italy – Heading into the 2006 Olympics, expectations were pretty low for the U.S. women’s freestyle aerial team. And, well, even those hopes weren’t met.
The U.S. women have failed to reach a World Cup podium since 2004. Aerials coach Matt Christensen entered the Olympics with the modest goal of a sixth-place finish. But as both Emily Cook and Jana Lindsey struggled in qualifying Tuesday night, that goal was rendered unattainable. Neither American scored high enough to advance to the field of 12 competing in tonight’s finals.
For the second consecutive night, the American aerialists struggled with their landings under the lights at the Sauze d’Oulx freestyle complex.
After watching three of her four teammates fail to qualify Monday for the men’s finals because of crash landings, Cook, 26, from Belmont, Mass., lurched the landing on her first jump, finishing her double- twisting double-backflip with an awkward stumble that left her face-first in the snow.
Her first-jump score of 60.32 points left Cook in 22nd place in the field of 23, with virtually no chance of qualifying on her second attempt. A clean landing on her less difficult second jump – a double-backflip with only one twist – left her with a two-jump total of 144.42. The qualifying cut was set at 160.22.
“I took a little tumble on that first jump, and I just wanted to come out and do a great second jump, which I really feel like I did,” Cook said. “The first one I just got a little caught up in the air, but I was very happy with that one as well. This is sport, and this is why we love it, because it’s not easy and you can’t always land. If it was easy, we probably wouldn’t do it.”
With only a slight bobble on her first attempt, Lindsey, 21, from Black Hawk, S.D., found herself in the qualifying mix with a 15th-place standing heading into the second round. Her first-jump score of 79.38 left her an attainable 80.85 points out of qualifying as the last jumper of the night. But a backslap on the landing as she over- rotated her more difficult triple-twisting double-backflip reduced her score to 70.85 for a 16th-place total of 150.23.
“Jana had a great shot at the very end,” head U.S. freestyle coach Jeff Wintersteen said. “She hasn’t had the best week of training. Her landing percentage wasn’t very good. In fact, the only jumps she landed were the two in practice and the first one in competition tonight. But she was jumping well. It was a good jump. She just didn’t hit the landing.”
Lindsey’s final attempt was made more difficult by a significant delay after a severe crash by the competitor before her, Lydia Ierodiaconou of Australia, the No. 2-ranked aerialist in the world. After posting the third-best score of the first round of jumping, Ierodiaconou over-rotated her second attempt and re-tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, which had been surgically reconstructed last summer in a radical procedure that grafted a cadaver Achilles tendon to her ligament.
Before the jump, Ierodiaconou and teammate Jacqui Cooper had demonstrated the strength of the Australian team by posting two of the night’s three highest scores. Cooper’s top score of 113.80 boosted her into the top qualifying position with a two-jump total of 213.36, well ahead of runner-up Xinxin Guo of China with 204.87. Even after the horrific crash, Ierodiaconou ranked 14th with a score of 155.45.
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
