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in si de ha lto n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, M ay 24 ,2 01 8 | 56 SPORTS Visit insidehalton.com for more coverage Ben Cooper figured if he could make the final at the Eastern Canadian champi- onships, that would be a success. So when he finished sec- ond in the qualifying round, he had to readjust his sights. "I wasn't really thinking about winning," the 11-year- old said. "Maybe top three." Cooper did better than that. He scored a 47.575 in the final to edge Quebec's Nicolas Desjardins by .05 to claim the men's level 2 gold medal at the Eastern Cana- dian Trampoline and Tum- bling Championships in Oshawa. "I was shocked," said the Grade 6 River Oaks student. "I was happy, proud." Cooper was one of just three 11-year-olds in the 10- man final. Half the field, in- cluding Desjardins, was two years older, but it was Coo- per that had the highest de- gree of difficulty for his rou- tine. He stepped things up this year, adding a back pike and Barani pike to his routine. And he executed them in the final to win the gold. "I felt I jumped higher and my routine was clean- er," said Cooper, who com- petes for Manjak Gymnas- tics. Cooper started in gym- nastics when he was three but only stayed with the sport for a year. He started playing hockey, but three years ago took up trampo- line. "We have a trampoline in the backyard and he'd be out there flipping around," said his mom Ally. "We thought he should find out how to do this properly." Soon his times for tram- poline and hockey were conflicting and having to make a choice, he chose trampoline. "I liked that it was a calm sport," Cooper said. "Hock- ey was all pushing and yell- ing." Cooper added a second medal in the synchronized trampoline. Paired at ran- dom with another competi- tor, Cooper and Ontario teammate Blake Fera won the bronze medal. For other Oakville ath-For other Oakville ath-F letes competing for Manjak - Brendan Gilhooly, Joe Sutherland, Robert Dilawri and Liam Smith - qualified for Eastern Canadians.for Eastern Canadians.f Oakville's Cooper wins Eastern Canadian trampoline title HERB GARBUTT hgarbutt@metroland.com Two years after winning the pole at the Indy 500, Oakville's James Hinch- cliffe will be watching the season's premier race from the sidelines. Hinchcliffe was edged by a hundredth of a second over four laps of the 2.5- mile (four kilometre) track for the final spot in the 33- car field for next Sunday's race. He could only watch as time ran out on the qual- ifying session as he sat next in line to make a qualifying attempt. "It's devastating in every way possible," Hinchcliffe said afterward. "Nobody failed us, the system didn't fail us. We failed us. At the end of the day, everybody got a run, which is the rule. Our run wasn't good enough, so blame the weather, blame other cars in line, you can blame whatever you want, but it just didn't happen today. You've got to take your lumps here sometimes." Hinchcliffe has started on the front row three times in his six Indy 500 starts and has never qual- ified lower than 17th. He has missed the race only once since joining IndyCar in 2011. That was when he suffered a life-threatening injury in a crash in prac- tice for the 2015 race. He bounced back the following year to earn his first Indy- Car pole position. Hinchcliffe had the mis- fortune of being the first car on the track following a nearly two-hour rain delay Saturday. He posted an average speed of 224.784 m.p.h. over his four laps. Once each car had one qualifying attempt, cars could make subsequent at- tempts. Both Oriol Servia and Connor Daly bettered Hinchcliffe's time with about 20 minutes remain- ing in the qualifying ses- sion, bumping him into 34th. Hinchcliffe went out for another attempt but was forced to abandon it. "We got in line there and then we had a tire vibra- tion," he said. "I'm not ex- actly sure what the prob- lem was." It was later discovered to be a broken tire pressure sensor. His Schmidt Peter- son Motorsports crew quickly fixed it and got the car back in line for another run. But time expired with Pippa Mann on the track and Hinchcliffe sitting next in line. James Davison grabbed the final spot with an aver- age speed of 224.874 m.p.h. and a time of two minutes, 40.1439 seconds over 10 miles. Hinchcliffe's time was 2:40.1547. "Indy is a cruel mistress sometimes. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but SPM worked their tails off to get these cars ready," he said. "It's crazy to be here after where we were two years ago, but we will put our heads down and we will take a look at it and definitely learn from this experience." The 31-year-old has two top-10 finishes at the Indy 500, including a career-best sixth in 2012. Hinchcliffe is fifth in IndyCar driver standings this season, with top-10 fin- ishes in all five races this season. Schmidt Peterson did qualify three other cars, teammate Robert Wickens, Jay Howard, who is on a one-race deal with the team and Jack Harvey, a co-entry with Michael Shank Racing. Ryan Hunter-Reay failed to qualify in 2011, but was later named a replace- ment driver for another qualified car. Oakville's Hinchcliffe bumped from Indy 500 field HERB GARBUTT hgarbutt@metroland.com James Hinchcliffe speaks to reporters after failing to qualify for the Indy 500 Saturday. JAMES J. BLACK