Lake Placid – After taking men’s and women’s World Cup aerials at the USANA Freestyle Cup in Lake Placid on Friday night, China did the same again on Saturday with Yo Yang and Zongyang Jia atop the podium.

In front of a packed house, Kiley McKinnon, of Madison, Conn., earned a career best World Cup finish and Nevin Brown, of Streetsboro, Ohio, tied his career best result. McKinnon took 10^th and Brown took seventh at the venue where their young careers started.

“Both tricks McKinnon and Brown competed tonight were new tricks for them this season and it’s a great feeling for them to have achieved success,” explained U.S. Ski Team aerials coach Todd Ossian. “This event feels like home to them and it’s a great benchmark for them looking ahead for the rest of the season. This puts them in a great position to be competitive the rest of the season. I expect that we will see both of them in a lot more finals in the upcoming events. We have the depth on our team to be able to be present in every single final and super final event.”

“I’m really happy with my tenth place finish today, it’s my best result so far in a World Cup and this has been a really great way to gain experience,” said McKinnon. “My first jump was a full full and it went really well. I haven’t competed a lot of them so to land it on my feet felt really good. My second jump didn’t go as well as I had wanted but overall I’m extremely satisfied with a career best in Lake Placid. This gives me a great benchmark for the rest of the season.”

McKinnon, who was a part of the Elite Aerial Development Program (EADP) led by Olympic Champion Eric Bergoust, was the only U.S. woman to make it through the qualification round. Belmont, Mass.’s Emily Cook, who took third on Friday, ended the evening in 14^th.

“This week it seemed like it all fell into place. My coaches and I made the last minute decision to change to a double full, full, full tonight and it turned out to be a great decision,” Brown said of his seventh-place result for the men. “I tied my career best score of a 117 and I couldn’t be happier. I love Lake Placid, I’ve trained their all my life and it’s a really great place to be able to show some good results.”

Both McKinnon and Brown started their careers jumping at the water ramps in Lake Placid.

Canada started the weekend with disappointment on Friday and concluded it only modestly better on Saturday. After failing to qualify any athletes for the finals on Friday a promising performance by aerialist Jean-Christophe André of Montreal was a bright spot in what was otherwise a challenging set of back-to-back performances for the Canadian Team in Lake Placid.

André was the top Canadian in 11^th place with a score of 73.01 after attempting a full, double full, full (quadruple twisting triple back flip with two twists on the second flip) for the first time in competition this season.

“The plan was that if I qualified for finals I would try the full, double full, full; so we stuck with the plan and I actually did the first one of the year in the training round between quallies and finals. My second one of the season was in the contest,” André explained. “I actually hit a pretty good takeoff and I had pretty good form in the air, but I just misjudged a little on the landing. I was super close to landing, but I went a little by.”

OFFICIAL RESULTS
FIS Freestyle World Cup
USANA Freestyle Cup – Lake Placid, N.Y. – Jan. 19, 2013
Aerials

Women

Men