China's Zhang crashes out of aerials
Rosa Khutor (Russia) (AFP) - Chinese world number two Zhang Xin was a shock casualty in the women's Olympic aerials competition in Sochi on Friday.
Zhang failed to qualify for the final after finishing seventh in the second qualification heat -- only the top six went through.
The 28-year-old finished down in 17th in the first qualification heat after failing to nail her landing.
The top six from that went directly into the final while everyone else had a second qualification run.
But Zhang's task was complicated by world champion teammate Xu Mengtao and Olympic champion Lydia Lassila from Australia also failing to qualify directly for the final.
Zhang was sitting precariously in sixth place following her jump when Xu landed hers and went second behind Lassila, relegating Zhang.
World number one Li Nina of China finished second in the opening qualifying run to go straight into the final but American Ashley Caldwell caused a sensation by landing a jump that had a greater than 4.0 difficulty rating to give her a score of 101.25, almost 15 points better than Li managed.
The closest anyone came to her score was Lassila in the second heat, but even then her score of 90.65 was more than 10 points behind.
