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Li misses chance to add another gold
By Fang Xuan (www.syxj.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-02-23 11:03
China's freestyle aerialist Li Nina, an Olympic gold
medal favorite in the women’s freestle aerials, turned in a solid
but somewhat unspectacular performance at choreographic ski-jumping event, just
missing out on a gold medal, and settling for
silver.
Li
Nina | Three Chinese athletes placed 1-2-3
after the first round in the competition, which had four
Chinese in the 12-strong field.
But World champion and World Cup leader Li Nina would
eventually come up short, finishing second to Switzerland's Evelyne
Leu, who used a powerful second jump to come from behind for
gold.
Leu nailed the landing of her backward triple somersault --
the most difficult jump in the competition -- and got 107.93 points from
generous referees. The score was the highest for a single jump in the
event.
Li Nina lagged behind Leu by 5 points after scoring 197.49
on her two jumps.
First-round leader Guo Xinxin, trying to execute
a difficult jump to maintain her lead, fell in the second round
and placed sixth.
Xu Nannan, the event's silver medalist in the 1998 Nagano
Games, completed both of her jumps well, but
finished fourth due to a lack of difficulty in her
jumps.
Australia's former champion Alisa Camplin took a surprise
bronze just four months after radical surgery on a cruciate knee ligament that
threatened to stop her from competing at the Games.
Camplin barely qualified for the final, with a preliminary
10th place, but delivered when it mattered most.
The other Chinese jumper Jiao Wang finished second from
last.
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