No Medal, but Peterson Gets All the Glory

SAUZE d'OULX, Italy —  A gamblin’ man in a gambler’s sport, Jeret Peterson could hardly contain his gold-medal smile after flying down the mountain.

Never mind that he finished seventh. To him, that wasn’t what Thursday night’s Olympic aerials competition was all about.

“I came here to do the Hurricane,” he said, “and I did the Hurricane.”

Problem was, he blew it.

Flying 50 feet above the ramp on his trademark trick, America’s last hope for a freestyle medal did five twists packed inside of three somersaults during his three seconds in the air -- the toughest jump in the sport, by far.

He looked great soaring through the night sky, but not so great on the landing. He bobbled backward and used his right hand to keep himself from sitting down. They weren’t huge errors, but on a night when all the leaders were close to perfect, the mistakes were enough to push him way down in the standings.

Despite that, it was hard to find anyone happier, and that included the top three finishers -- Han Xiaopeng of China, Dmitri Dashinski of Belarus and Vladimir Lebedev of Russia.

“It’s great. It’s awesome. I love it,” Peterson said. “It gets my adrenaline going. It’s absolutely everything I love about freestyle aerials. It’s the one thing in my heart that I can’t find anywhere else.”

On this night, though, he said he was probably too pumped up, which made him over-rotate after takeoff. That almost always foreshadows something bad on the landing and Peterson has been around long enough to know what that means.

“In aerials, if you don’t land, you might as well have not showed up,” he said.

The judges agreed, dropping him out of medal contention. He had been in third after his first jump, a more conservative effort that had him diving into the crowd to celebrate.

His feel-good story might have been a bit more palatable had he not represented the U.S. freestyle team’s last chance to win something during what has been a bad couple of weeks.

Toby Dawson’s bronze in moguls is the only medal for the team.

Coach Jeff Wintersteen said three golds were possible this year and he didn’t try to hide his disappointment afterward.

“I think they were prepared coming in,” he said, referring to his 14 athletes. “There’s only so much you can do. You have to execute at some point.”

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MEDAL WINNERS

MEN’S AERIALS

GOLD

* Han Xiaopeng, China

SILVER

* Dmitri Dashinski, Belarus

BRONZE

* Vladimir Lebedev, Russia