VANCOUVER – Steve Omischl wasn’t about to treat this Olympic Games like a night in Vegas. Not this time. No high risk gambling like he did four years ago at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.
Omischl – the man with everything the freestyle skiing world has to offer except an Olympic medal – kept it simple at Cypress Mountain Monday night and qualified for Thursdays’ 12-man aerials final, something he failed to do in Turin.
Omischl played it safe and managed a two-jump total of 233.88 points to qualify eighth. Calgarians Warren Shouldice and Kyle Nissen qualified sixth and ninth with scores of 235.93 and 233.71.
“The only thing I was focusing on was trying to hit two takeoffs and not worry about anything else,” said the 31-year-old Omischl, who is trying to end something of an Olympic jinx at these home Games.
In 2002 at Salt Lake City the North Bay, Ont., native finished 11th after qualifying fourth. In Turin he attempted an extremely difficult jump in the qualifying session, a jump he’d never successfully landed and had barely even attempted. He crashed and his Olympic dream were shattered.
So Monday he went with better odds, used his old reliables – a full double full and lay double full – and got the job done.
“I could have done a harder jump with the potential of getting a higher score but it was like, no, do my bread and butter, get the job done, don’t do anything more than land a nice jump, get my ticket punched. I’m very happy to get into the finals.”
“That didn’t come into my thought today,” he said of the tactical error in Turin. “It came into my strategy coming into the Games. My strategy was always to do lay double full. It’s very rare that I miss that. I probably have like a 90-, 95-per-cent (success rate). It’s enough to get me into finals. I wasn’t trying to gamble with a harder jump like I was in Turin to try to qualify high.
“In Turin I had it a little bit backwards. I was trying to qualify high so I could play into the strategy of finals but you can’t put the cart ahead of the horse. So that was my strategy tonight, easy, safe jumps. Just get in.”
Omischl has 20 World Cup victories, four World Cup aerials overall titles, a 2005 world championship – everything, except a coveted Olympic medal.
And so he will ramp it up a bit on Thursday. He’ll use a full double full in his first jump and then double full full full for his second jump to stay within striking distance of the podium.
China’s Zongyang Jia led qualifying with a score of 242.52.
But two heavyweights fell.
Anton Kushnir of Belarus, the current World Cup leader with four victories in six events, is out after crashing on his second jump. Defending gold medallist Xiaopeng Han finished 21st and won’t move on.
The loss of Kushnir was a shock and one Omischl could relate to.
“It’s disappointing,” Omischl said. “He’s dominated this season but that, right there, is the Olympic Games. Anything can happen. He’s the man. For him not to be there, it’s sad. I know what that’s about . . . in 2006, to be the favourite and not even get a chance, that sucks.”
With three men in the final there’s a chance for Canada to win its first freestyle aerials medal since Philippe LaRoche and Lloyd Langlois won silver and bronze in 1994 at Lillehammer, when aerials made its Olympic debut as a medal sport.
Shouldice, who had Canada’s only podium on the 2009-10 World Cup circuit, a silver in Lake Placid last month, said he was nervous but still got the job done.
“I was nervous but I’d be hard pressed to find someone out there who wasn’t nervous,” said Shouldice, who was sixth in Turin.
“That’s what the Olympics are about. I handled the nerves pretty well. I jumped great. I got my ticket to the finals.”
Ditto for Nissen, like Shouldice a Calgarian, who was fifth in Turin.
“Getting to the final is what it’s all about,” said Nissen.
“It’s stress just getting past semis because you have everything to lose and nothing to gain. It’s nice that it’s over and I’ve got my finals berth and I have a chance to win a medal now.”
The final is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday.
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