Krasnaya Polyana, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) - Defending Olympic champion Alexei Grishin of Belarus failed to qualify for the finals in men's aerials, while American freestyle skier Mac Bohonnon held on to make the medal round Monday at the Sochi Olympics.
The top six scores from the first round of qualification moved on, while all other skiers had a second chance at six more spots in Monday's final.
Grishin, the 2010 Olympic champion and 2002 bronze medalist in aerials, was 20th out of 21 skiers after the first round. He then failed to stick the landing on his second chance and wound up finishing ninth. Grishin, the flagbearer for Belarus at the opening ceremony in Sochi, was competing at his fifth Winter Games.
China's Liu Zhongqing, the bronze medalist four years ago in Vancouver, also failed to move on and finished last out of 15 skiers in the second round.
Bohonnon, meanwhile, grabbed the sixth spot in the second round of qualifications, posting a score of 110.18 to finish 1.77 points ahead of Russia's Timofei Slivets for the last of 12 berths. Bohonnon is competing at his first Olympic Games.
Despite poor showings from Grishin and Liu, both China and Belarus will have plenty of medal opportunities in the aerials. Three of the six final berths awarded in the first round went to skiers from China and three of the second- round spots were claimed by Belarusians.
Jia Zongyang, Qi Guangpu and Wu Chao earned trips to the finals for the Chinese in Round 1 and were joined by David Morris of Australia, Switzerland's Renato Ulrich and Oleksandr Abramenko of Ukraine.
Jia and Morris had the highest scores of the first round, each posting marks of 118.59. Qi, the reigning world champion in aerials, was fourth with a score of 113.57.
Dmitri Dashinski and Anton Kushnir of Belarus finished first and second, respectively, in the second round and countryman Denis Osipau was fifth. Dashinski had the second-best score of Monday's qualification rounds with a mark of 117.19.
Russia's Pavel Krotov picked up the third spot in Round 2 and was followed by Canada's Travis Gerrits.
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