No Medal for Omischl (Updated)

A crowd of skiers watch from the Laurentian Cafe in the lower lodge on Laurentian Ski Hill as Steve Omischl gets ready to jump. Photo by Chris Dawson.

It was a disappointing night for North Bay's Steve Omischl as a poor landing on his first jump cost him a medal in this third and possibly final Olympic Games for the 31-year-old.

In his first jump, a back/full double full-full, he sat 9th spot out of 12 in the first of two jumps in the Olympic FreeStyle Ski Aerials event on Cypress Mountain.

"I was a little bit on the back seat of landing on my first jump and these guys are too good, you can’ t do that and expect to be up there and be competitive with these guys if you aren’t going to land cleanly," he told CTV after the finals.

Omischl did better on his second jump, successfully landing aa double full-full-full for a combined score of 233.66 which was only good enough for 8th spot out of the 12 skiers - the same position he finished in and almost the identical score (233.88) he had in the qualifying round.

Still for a four-time World Cup champion who finished 20th in Salt Lake City, and 11th in Turin, the 8th place finish was not the story book finish the North Bay Aerialist wanted.

"It hurts not having the outcome that everyone wanted including myself, it’s tough," a choked up Omischl stated to CTV's Katherine Dolan shortly after the event.

"Still when I look back at my career, especially the last month of training, I cannot physically do anymore than what I did to put myself in this position and that’s sport, that’s how fine the line is. I don’t know what more I can say or do."

Teammate Kyle Nissen, who sat in first position after the first round, finished a disappointing 5th place.

Alexei Grishin of Belarus captured the gold with a combined score of 248.41.