DEER VALLEY — The 32 finalists — 16 men and 16 women — have been selected and will, tonight, run the tough mogul course in the 2006 Freestyle FIS World Cup.
This race is one of the last three chances for American skiers to get a ticket to Torino, Italy, to ski in the Winter Olympics.
Thus far only two spots on the Olympic team have been filled — Jeremy Bloom of Loveland, Colo., and Hannah Kearney, Norwich, Vt. Both earned wild card tickets by winning the Olympic Trials in late December.
The remaining six seats — three men, three women — are open. All it will take to make the team is a podium appearance, that is, a finish in the top three, in any of the remaining races, this event included.
Interestingly, Bloom and Kearney failed to make it into the final run today. Bloom fell and finished in last place among the 41 finishers, and Kearney finished 31 among 34 finishers.
Toby Dawson of Vail, Colo., tied with Alexandre Bilodeau of Canada as the top qualifier. Both finished with a score of 25.47, which is a combination of how they scored in skiing style down the course, their maneuvers in two jumps and time from top to bottom.
In the women's event, Jennifer Heil of Canada was the top qualifier with a score of 25.11.
The importance of the qualifying positions is that in the finals (7 p.m. tonight), the run order will be reversed, which means Dawson and Bilodeau, and Heil, will ski last.
Qualifying at No. 4 for the U.S.. team was Travis-Antone Cabral of South Lake Tahoe, and at No. 8 was Nathan Roberts of Park City and David Babic of Washington, Vt.
The top U.S. competitor for the women was Michelle Roark of Denver at No. 4. Also qualifying was Emiko Torito of Denver at No. 11 and Eliza Outtrim at No. 14 and Shannon Bahrke of Tahoe City, Calif., at No. 15.
Dawson and Bilodeau each scored 13.2 points on their style down the mogul course. And while Bilodeau drew higher scores from judges on his two jumps, Dawson skied the course with a faster time.
Roark lost ground to the top three finishers in all three areas. Heil, for example, scored a 13.2 for her turns, while Roark scored 12.8. Heil posted a time of 30.92 seconds, where Roark took 33.10 seconds.
In the finals, Heil would certainly be the favorite. She was the top qualifier and is the current World Cup leader. Nikola Sudova, second in World-Cup moguls, finished No. 28 and did not qualify.
Bloom is leading the field in World Cup moguls. Bilodeau is in fourth place and Dawson is seventh.
The schedule for today calls for women's aerial qualifications at 9:40 a.m., followed by the men's at 12:40 p.m. The aerial finals will start at 2:45 p.m. The mogul finals will be at 7 p.m.
Aerial competition will continue into Saturday, with qualifications starting at 1:30 p.m. The finals will be under the lights starting at 6 p.m.
E-mail: grass@desnews.com