Canadian skis to second in halfpipe
PARK CITY, UTAH— Canadian Cassie Sharpe narrowly missed capturing her first ski halfpipe world championship, settling for second place on Saturday behind Estonia’s Kelly Sildaru.
Sharpe, the reigning Olympic champion from Comox, B.C., scored 94.40 points on her first of three runs and held the top score in the eight-woman field through the second run.
But the 16-year-old Sildaru nailed a massive 95-point run on her third trip down the halfpipe to overtake Sharpe’s top score. Sharpe, the last rider down, bobbled her final run to hand Sildaru the title.
Brita Sigourney of the U.S. was third with 90.60 points.
Rachel Karker of Erin, Ont., competing in her first world championships, finished fourth with 85.20 points.
On the men’s side, Calgary’s Noah Bowman had a stellar 91.60-point third run to sneak onto the podium in third place, bumping Simon D’Artois of Whistler, B.C., to fourth.
American Aaron Blunck won gold with 94.20 points and Kevin Rolland of France took silver with 93.80. SHORT TRACK: Cédrik Blais earned his second-consecutive bronze medal on the shorttrack speedskating World Cup circuit, taking third place in the men’s 500-metre race in Turin, Italy, on Saturday and helping Canada to a three-medal haul.
Kim Boutin (women’s 500) and Steven Dubois (men’s 1,500) also won bronze.
Saturday’s bronze matched Blais’ career-best third-place finish last weekend.
Blais, a Chateauguay, Que., native, finished fourth in the men’s 500 but was promoted to the podium after teammate Samuel Girard was penalized for a push from behind that caused Blais to fall.
South Korea’s Hwang Dae-heon topped the podium and Shaolin Sandor Liu of Hungary won silver.
“I am happy to have put myself in the final today and earned a medal, but I didn’t reach the podium in the best way,” Blais said. “Sam caught on a cone in the fourth corner and passed too close to me. But that’s short track. We can’t always control everything in a race.” LUGE: Canada’s Tristan Walker and Justin Snith matched a season-best fifth-place finish in doubles at the luge World Cup stop in Oberhof, Germany.
Strong starts and solid runs propelled the Calgary-based duo to a two-run time of one minute 22.673 seconds.
They were .722 seconds off the leading pace set by Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, who set the gold standard at 1:21.951. Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken clocked in at 1:22.151 for the silver, while Latvia’s Andris Sics and Juris Sics slid to bronze in 1:22.274.