SAUZE d'OULX, Italy — A gamblin' man in a gambler's sport, Jeret "Speedy" Peterson could hardly contain his gold-medal smile after flying down the mountain.
Never mind that he only finished seventh. To him, that wasn't what Thursday night's Olympic aerials competition was all about.
"I came here to do the Hurricane," he said, "and I did the Hurricane."
Problem was, he blew it.
Flying 50 feet above the ramp on his trademark trick, America's last hope for a freestyle medal did five twists packed inside of three somersaults during his three seconds in the air — the toughest jump in the sport, by far.
He looked great soaring through the night sky, but not so great on the landing. He bobbled backward and used his right hand to keep himself from sitting down. They weren't huge errors, but on a night when all the leaders were close to perfect, the mistakes were enough to push him way down in the standings.
Despite that, it was hard to find anyone happier down at the bottom, and that included the top three finishers — Han Xiaopeng of China, Dmitri Dashinski of Belarus and Vladimir Lebedev of Russia.
"It's great. It's awesome. I love it," Peterson said. "It gets my adrenaline going. It's absolutely everything I love about freestyle aerials. It's the one thing in my heart that I can't find anywhere else."
Not for lack of trying.
Peterson has taken a recent liking to skydiving and is one of 12 U.S. Olympians who are candidates to join Donald Trump on "The Apprentice" in the fall. Maybe Speedy's biggest off-the-mountain adrenaline rush came last year when he won about a half-million dollars playing blackjack in Las Vegas and bought himself a house.
But nothing quite does it for Speedy like standing atop the aerials hill, waiting to do the Hurricane. On this night, though, he said he was probably too pumped up, which made him over-rotate after takeoff. That almost always foreshadows something bad on the landing and Peterson has been around long enough to know what that means.
"In aerials, if you don't land, you might as well have not showed up," he said.
The judges agreed, dropping him out of medal contention. He had been in third after his first jump, a more conservative effort that had him diving into the crowd to celebrate.
His feel-good story might have been a bit more palatable had he not represented the U.S. freestyle team's last chance to win something on what has been, frankly, a bad fortnight in Sauze d'Oulx. Toby Dawson's bronze medal in moguls is the only hardware for a team that won three silvers in 2002 and three golds four years before that.
Coach Jeff Wintersteen said three golds were possible this year and he didn't mask his disappointment afterward.
"I think they were prepared coming in," he said, referring to his 14 athletes, each ranked in the world's top 15 in their discipline coming into the Olympics. "There's only so much you can do. You have to execute at some point." Peterson didn't, though to him, that wasn't the point.
There were plenty who agreed with him.
"He was going for gold, not shooting for the podium," said American aerialist Eric Bergoust, who long set the standard for this sport.
And the silver medalist, Dashinski: "I think it's good that somebody is trying it, good for the people and good for us."
At 24, Peterson could easily be around four years from now in Vancouver. Even if he's not, his trick will leave a lasting impression. Many think five twists will be commonplace come 2010.
Freestyle skiing is one of those sports that needs to be pushed and prodded by its risktakers. His gambit was reminiscent of the one Jonny Moseley took on the moguls course four years ago — trying his famed "Dinner Roll," an off-axis jump that had been banned until he begged to do it for the Olympics.
He finished fourth with that jump, but the real victory came in the aftermath. Everyone does Dinner Rolls now.
Peterson brought the same attitude to aerials.
"It was the toughest jump that's ever been done in competition and I'm very glad to say that I threw it here in the Olympics," Peterson said. "That's what it's all about — going for it."