Whitfield, Burnett earn silver, increase Canada's haul to 11 medals

BEIJING - Gymnast Jason Burnett reached the podium in his first Olympics while veteran triathlete Simon Whitfield won his second career medal as Canada enjoyed another successful day at the Beijing Games.

Burnett won silver in men's trampoline. The three-time Canadian champion from Toronto expertly executed a routine with a high difficulty rating and finished second with 40.7 points. Lu Chunlong of China won the gold medal with 41 points, while countryman Dong Dong won bronze with 40.6.

Burnett's medal came a day after Karen Cockburn won silver in women's trampoline.

Meanwhile, Whitfield earned silver in triathlon after winning gold in the event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Unsatisfied with his 11th-lace finish at the Athens Games four years ago, Whitfield dedicated himself to improving his performance in all three stages of the triathlon, particularly the swim.

It paid off for the Kingston, Ont., native whe he finished in one hour 48 minutes 58 seconds, five seconds behind Germany's Jan Frodeno.

"To be able to fight my way back to the podium, that was hard, that was so hard - this was a harder race than Sydney was," Whitfield said.

It was another solid result for Canada, which saw its medal count grow to 11 - two gold, five silver, four bronze.

Canada hoped to earn more medals Tuesday, as Alexandre Despatie advanced to the final of the men's three-metre springboard diving competition. The Laval, Que., native finished second in the semifinal with a score of 518.75.

There were other encouraging results Tuesday.

Tabia Charles of Pickering, Ont., advanced to the women's long jump final in her Olympic debut.

The 23-year-old jumped 6.61 metres in the qualifying round to earn a spot among the top 12 in Friday's final.

"Making it to top 12, oh my goodness, my goal this year was to make it here, so this is amazing to make it to the final," said Charles, who finished ninth overall in qualifying. "I was comfortable with 6.61 metres, I thought that would get me through."

Canadian kayaker Adam van Koeverden, meanwhile, broke his own world record in cruising to a win in the opening heat of the K-1 500 metres.

Van Koeverden finished in one minute 35.554 seconds to break the mark of 1:35.630 he set earlier this year at a regatta in Poland.

The defending Olympic champion in the 500 will compete in the semifinal on Thursday.

Whitfield had a shot at a gold, momentarily surging into the lead before being overtaken with less than 30 metres to go by Frodeno.

"I tried. I tried really hard," Whitfield said. "For a moment there I thought I had it.

"I tried to make it a battle of pure willpower. I gave it everything I had."

Whitfield had a lot of help from his Canadian teammates.

Hamilton's Colin Jenkins, who was appointed to the team as Whitfield's domestique, helped him on the bike by riding at the front of the pack to cover breakaways.

"Our communication was spectacular," Whitfield said.

And he said he was careful to properly time his surge on Frodeno, Gomez and Docherty.

"I have so much respect for Bevan and he's had my number. Probably for a year now I've had trouble beating Bevan," Whitfield said. "I wanted to discourage him and put it out there that if 'you're going to beat me, you're going to hurt way more.'

"Jan just went and the way he went, he was just going anyway. He would have done it with 20 metres to go or from there, so I made him make a decision early."

Edmonton's Paul Tichelaar finished 28th, while Jenkins was 50th.

In other results Tuesday:

-Canada maintained a slim chance of advancing to the baseball semifinals with a 4-0 win over the Netherlands.

The Canadians still need a win against Taiwan on Wednesday and a boatload of help from other teams to make it through to the next round.

They got a gem from Vancouver's Brooks McNiven, who gave up one hit and no walks over six innings

"We put together a more complete ballgame today with outstanding pitching," manager Terry Puhl said.

-Ottawa's Peng Zhang defeated Trinidad and Tobago's Dexter St. Louis in four sets in men's table tennis. Ottawa's Pradeeban Peter-Paul dropped a marathon 4-3 decision to Brazil's Gustavo Tsuboi.

On the women's side, Mo Zhang of Ottawa lost in four sets to Belarus's Tatyana Kostromina.

-Ruky Abdulai of Coquitlam, B.C., a native of Ghana who obtained her Canadian citizenship in January, jumped 6.41 in the long jump but didn't advance.

-Vancouver's Mike Leigh finished ninth in the men's Laser class dinghy sailing race.

-Marie-Pier Boudreau Gagnon of Levis, Que., and Isabelle Rampling of Burlington, Ont., were sixth after the duet free preliminaries of synchronized swimming with 94.666 points.

-Zach Bell of Watson Lake, Yukon and Martin Gilbert of Chateauguay, Que., finished 12th in the men's madison cycling final.

-Saeed Azarbayjani of St. Catharines, Ont., won his opening bout, but lost his second and was eliminated in 60-kilogram freestyle wrestling.