France sweeps Olympic medals in men's ski cross

SOCHI, Russia, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Jean Frederic Chapuis led a 1-2-3 finish for the French Thursday in the men's Olympic freestyle skiing ski cross competition.

With medal favorites falling victim to the fickle nature of ski cross, the four spots in the finals were taken up by the three French medal winners and Canada's Brady Leman.

Leman finished first in his opening-round heat as well as in his quarterfinal and semifinal runs.

In the finals, however, Leman dropped into fourth place early and eventually fell.

Arnaud Bovolenta received the silver medal and Jonathan Midol took the bronze.

Canada was shut out of the medals even though skiers from that country made up three of the top six seeds coming out of qualifying. Leman was one of those while Canada's Christopher Del Bosco and David Duncan both failed to survive the first of the knockout rounds.

Defending champion Michael Schmidt of Switzerland missed the competition after injuring his left knee in training last Saturday.