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Canada’s Olivier Rochon finished third at Lake Placid freestyle skiing aerials

Jan 19, 2018 | 9:15 PM

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Canada’s Olivier Rochon finished third on Friday night at a World Cup freestyle skiing aerials event.

Rochon of Gatineau, Que., finished with 120.24 points after landing his full double full full, a quadruple twisting triple backflip, in qualifications and during the first final.

Jia Zongyang of China won gold (126.99) and Oleksandr Abramenko was second (123.45).

“Today, everything just fell into place,” said Rochon, who has jumped in Lake Placid for 12 years. “My qualification jump was good enough to get me to the final, and I managed to improve my score in the final to end up in the super final with a lay double full full, a jump with a lower degree of difficulty but that earned me my best-ever score.

“We stuck to a conservative plan to get good results and it was the right decision. This is the progression we’ve been trying to achieve all winter and we can finally say ‘mission accomplished.’”

Rochon’s finish at the event puts him in a good position to attend the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics next month in South Korea, but will have to wait until the rest of the weekend’s events finish.

The last time Rochon reached a podium was in February 2016 in Deer Valley after a second-place finish.

The Canadian Press