Danielle Scott has added to her freestyle skiing World Championships medal haul with a silver medal in the aerials in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Key points:
- Danielle Scott won her third career World Championship medal in Georgia
- Scott qualified number one for the final, which was delayed by 24 hours due to wind and snow
- Two-time world champion Laura Peel finished in seventh place
After strong winds and snowfall forced the postponement of the competition by 24 hours, World Cup leader Scott finished second behind China’s Fanyu Kong.
The silver is the third World Championship medal of 32-year-old Scott’s career, having previously won silver in Spain in 2017 and a bronze in Norway in 2013.
“It feels incredible, but it doesn’t quite feel real yet,” Scott told the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia.
“It’s been the craziest week, I didn’t actually think we’d be here, but here we are. I’m super happy and, yeah, I’ve just got to let it sink in.”
Scott had qualified first for Thursday’s final but only scraped into the top-six medal shoot out with a score of 82.97 for her lay-full-full double twist triple back somersault after the fresh snow made getting up to speed difficult.
That pushed two-time world champion and fellow Olympic finalist Laura Peel into seventh and out of medal contention after she scored 80.29 on her full-tuck-full triple somersault.
Despite the wind and fresh snow making it difficult for the high-difficulty triples, Scott stuck with the audacious skill to perform a lay-tuck-full single twist triple somersault to score 83.84 points, with her landing the main deduction.
Kong — who spectacularly face-planted at her home Olympics to rule her out of medal contention — scored 85.30 in claiming gold and Ukraine’s Anastasiya Novosad won bronze with 82.84.
Scott said the 24-hour delay — similar to last year’s Olympic final in Beijing, where the entire competition was postponed for 24 hours due to high winds — made things difficult for the competitors.
“We didn’t know what today was going to be like after cancelling yesterday, so you just have to stay in the game, but also not over think it, because that’s really easy to do,” Scott said.
“I committed to jumping triples, we went for a lay-tuck-full and it was really good, it was so close to taking the World Championship, but got to be happy.”
Australia has exceptional pedigree in aerials at World Championships, boasting four previous winners in the women’s competition: Kirstie Marshall (1997), Jacqui Cooper (1999), Alisa Camplin (2003) and Laura Peel (2015 and 2021).
Scott has enjoyed another stellar season on the World Cup circuit, leading the aerials rankings after winning events in Ruka, Finland and Deer Valley, US — where she landed the highest-scoring jump of her career, with a lay-full-full double twisting triple back somersault earning her 115.20 points.
The World Cup resumes in Engadin, Switzerland, on March 5, with Scott aiming for her first Crystal Globe.
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