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TOWN OF BLUE MOUNTAINS, ONT. - In the wild and wooly sport of ski cross, it's push or be shoved. It's better to be too aggressive holding your line than be victim of someone else's reckless pass.

Ashleigh McIvor flashed her grit while earning her fourth consecutive podium finish - this time a silver in front of a loud, pro-Canadian crowd at Blue Mountain, about two hours northwest of Toronto.

She hopes the run will continue to Cypress Mountain next month at the 2010 Olympic Games, where she will be one of Canada's medal hopes.

"I seem to be this shy passive person, but once the start gate drops I get aggressive," said McIvor, 26, of Whistler, BC. "I get on auto-pilot. I get in the zone and don't even think about stuff. I just look for little gaps in between people if I need to get through them."

But the big winners yesterday were a pair of Canadians a little lower in the ranking who clawed their way into the Olympic picture. The Canadian team will be finalized Sunday with the last pre-Olympics qualifying ski-cross event in Lake Placid, New York.

McIvor earned her silver in not atypical fashion for ski cross, a debut Olympic sport that's equal parts roller derby, motocross and giant slalom. She advanced to the final heat by missing one crash and then survived two high-speed collisions in the final to earn the eighth World Cup medal of her career.

"I'm happy with my result," said McIvor, who had already qualified for the Games as the 2009 world champion. "Being on the podium is always a good thing."

Marte Hoeie Gjefsen of Norway won the women's event, while Sasa Faric of France was third. Matt Andreas of Austria won the men's event while Lars Lewen of Sweden and Patrick Koller Austria were second and third.

The top Canadian man was Brady Leman. He finished fifth, a result he desperately needed to stay in the mix for the Olympic team.

"It gives me an outside shot, for sure," said Leman, 23, of Calgary, who broke his leg in a racing collision last year and has been scrambling to make up for lost time since. "I need a podium. I was down to needing two results in two races and fifth was the worst I could have done [here] and still have a shot. If I get on the box in Placid I'll have a chance."

He fought for it. He finished second in his first heat to advance to the round of 16 (the 32 starters were determined by a qualifying run on Tuesday) but not without getting into a heated exchange at the bottom with Olivier Fabre of France, with each accusing the other of trying to pull past in the kind of close-contact skiing that promises to make ski cross a breakout hit at the Olympics.

"He thought I grabbed him, I thought he was holding me back," Leman said. "We had some words but that's kind of the way it goes in ski cross. We'll watch the tape. If I was in the wrong I'll find him at Placid and apologize. Hopefully if he sees the tape and he's in the wrong, he'll do the same. It's all you can do."

Danielle Poleschuk was similarly aggressive with everything on the line as she, too, is down to one last race to make her Olympic dream come true. With a Swiss skier closing in on her at the finish line, Poleschuk leaned her shoulder in and raised her elbow out and held onto sixth position, tying her career-best.

"Every point definitely counts," said Poleschuk, 23, of Winnipeg.

McIvor is one of the few Canadians who didn't have to worry about her result yesterday. But once she made the final she was all business.

Bumped once by Katharina Gutensohn out of the starting gates, McIvor showed her fierce side by pinching off the bigger Austrian a little further down the hill, knocking here out of contention in the process.

"She had nowhere to go and she tried to push me and I just held my ground," McIvor said. "There's a fine line between holding your ground and having your arms out to protect your personal space and pushing. She's taken me out before."