U.S. Qualifies 3 in Women's Aerials

CYPRESS MOUNTAIN, BC – The U.S. Olympic Team qualified three of four aerialists for Wednesday's finals, marking the first time an American woman will appear in the finals since 1998 in Nagano when Nikki Stone won gold.

"I'm psyched about where we are right now, and I think we've got a good shot at a medal," said Freestyle Head Coach Jeff Wintersteen.

Emily Cook (Belmont, MA) qualified fifth with a score of 180.25, earning her first finals in three Olympic trips – despite lightened training to recover from a bruised heel.

"Every day's a new day," Cook said. "I haven't trained much in the last six weeks, so I was really just relying on all my training from all of the years past. I'm very, very thankful to have put down two solid jumps."

Cook, who won a World Cup in Moscow two years ago, was conservative in the qualifications and plans to step it up in Wednesday's medals round.

"I'm going to up my degree of difficulty (in the final). I downgraded a little bit today, just because of the amount of training time I had."

Olympic Trials winner Lacy Schnoor (Sandy, UT) was sixth with a 169.51, while 16-year-old Ashley Caldwell (Hamilton, VA) made the transition from elite gymnast to world-class aerialist look easy despite the pressure of jumping first.

"I think being first kind of helped because I got it out of the way," she said after taking the 12th and final spot. "I didn't have time to think about it, but also jumping was fresh in my mind. I had just done a really sweet full double full, so I had it ready to go.

"The landing wasn't exactly how I wanted, but I'll take it."

Jana Lindsey (Black Hawk, SD) struggled on her first jump and missed out on finals in 17th.

"It is disappointing," she said. "Obviously you want to be in that top-12 position. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that my first jump the way I wanted to."

Finals start Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. PT.