Signature Move Pays Off

Peterson's Hurricane Lands Him in Third Place

LAKE PLACID, N.Y., Jan. 22 -- Jeret "Speedy" Peterson's signature Hurricane move is the most difficult stunt in freestyle aerials. But Peterson, the reigning World Cup aerials champion, found out Sunday night that he can really wow the crowd by performing a near-perfect Hurricane, losing a ski immediately upon landing and summoning the poise to zoom across the finish teetering on his other ski.

Fans clanged cowbells and cheered Peterson's display of balance after his hair-raising run at Sunday's Freestyle Aerial World Cup at Lake Placid. The added drama of the errant ski, of course, hadn't been part of the script. Apparently unmoved by Peterson's improvisational skills, judges awarded him third place, docking him several tenths of a point for the unorthodox landing. Canadians Ryan Blais and Jeff Bean took first and second, respectively.

But Peterson could hardly have been more elated. With the Olympics less than three weeks away, what he wanted more than anything, on the eve of the final World Cup competition before the Games, was to stick at least one good landing of a Hurricane in competition. He managed that and more Sunday.

"How much more control does it show if you can land it with one ski than with two?" said Peterson, 24, of Boise, Idaho. "More than anything it was great for my morale and my confidence going into the Olympics because what I am mostly looking to do is land jumps. That's all I want to do."

Lake Placid's three-day World Cup event, which consisted of two moguls events and one aerials, represented the last chance for American skiers to qualify for the Olympic freestyle team. The 14-person squad will officially be named Wednesday.

Four skiers had already ensured themselves a spot: Hannah Kearney and Jeremy Bloom in moguls, and aerialists Emily Cook and Ryan St. Onge, who earned their berths by winning their events at the U.S. Olympic trials in December.

Peterson's podium finish Sunday confirmed the obvious: He's at the forefront of men's aerials and a lock for the Olympic team. Peterson, who finished ninth in his Olympic debut at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002, has his game plan for Turin already worked out. He'll perform two moderately difficult stunts in qualifying to boost his chances of advancing to the finals. Then he'll break out the Hurricane in a gamble for gold.

Freestyle aerials are acrobatics on snow. Without using poles, skiers zoom down a steep slope and up an even steeper ramp to launch themselves 40 to 50 feet in the air, then perform as many flips and spins as possible before gravity yanks them to earth. With his Hurricane, Peterson crams more action while suspended in mid-air -- three flips and five twists, to be exact -- than any skier going. He named the stunt the Hurricane because of the visceral parallels.

"You can't see anything; you don't know where the heck you are," Peterson said. "That's how I got the name."

He devised the trick one layer at a time in the U.S. Olympic Training Center's splash pool, adding twist after twist until he couldn't add anymore. As hard as it is to pull off mid-flight, with scant sense of bearings, it's even harder to land.

"It happens so quickly, you don't have any time to look at what you're doing and adjust," Peterson said, "so I have to use all my other senses to tell me where I am: Feeling the blood in my feet and my head; feeling the rush; feeling the wind; going with my inner ear to help with my balance. I use muscle memory and timing memory from doing it so many times on water and jumping. When I'm up there I'll count: 'There's one twist. There's two twists. There's three. Break out, and then full twist down to the ground.' "

Conditions have to be close to ideal for Peterson to even attempt the Hurricane, with good light and very little wind. Sunday afternoon's weather was precisely that, convincing Peterson to give it a try. With luck, the weather will be much the same for the Olympic finals in Turin.

Asked if he could imagine an aerialist attempting a trick that was more difficult, Peterson smiled. "If anybody goes for six twists, A: I want to watch, and B: If they land it, I quit," he said. "I want to be able to walk when I'm 40."

In moguls competition earlier Sunday, Jillian Vogtli, 32, a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Ski team, likely clinched a spot on the 2006 Olympic team with her third-place finish at Whiteface Mountain. Defending Olympic and world champion Kari Traa of Norway won; Canada's Jennifer Heil was second.

Sunday's men's moguls featured a repeat winner, with Dale Begg-Smith of Australia winning his second gold of the weekend. Sami Mustonen and Tapio Luusua, both of Finland, took silver and bronze. American Nate Roberts needed a podium finish to bump his way onto the Olympic team, but fell short, taking seventh.