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St. Onge, Evans win aerials titles
Associated Press
BOISE — Aerial skiers Ryan St. Onge of Winter Park, Colo., and three-time Olympian Tracy Evans of Park City survived poor weather to win their first national titles Saturday.
St. Onge, 19, scored 208.03 points to beat Olympic silver medalist Joe Pack of Park City (199.68) in a showdown between former junior world champions. Olympian and local favorite Jeret Peterson of Boise took bronze (197.02).
The competition was delayed 4 hours by snow and fog at Bogus Basin Ski Area. Spectators sometimes lost sight of the jumpers, and officials determined it wasn't safe to permit the most difficult jumps.
"We couldn't even see the jumps," Peterson said.
With triple and quadruple flips outlawed, skiers were limited mostly to doubles and judges focused more on form.
"For a guy like me, without the huge, huge tricks, it's definitely an advantage," St. Onge said.
Eric Bergoust of Missoula, Mont., the 1998 Olympic champion and winner of the last two World Cup titles, led after the first round but didn't nail his second jump and dropped to fourth.
The 34-year-old Evans scored 154.06 to beat a predominantly teenage field. Jana Lindsay, 17, of Black Hawk, S.D., was second (150.22) and 18-year-old Kate Reed of Montrose, Colo., placed third ((143.65).
Evans announced her retirement afterward.
"I'm very content to end right now," she said.
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March 24, 2002
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