Australia has won a 3rd medal in Vancouver making the 2010 Games our most successful Winter Olympics ever with Lydia Lassila winning gold in the Women’s Aerials at Cypress Mountain.
Lydia Lassila’s gold medal in the Women’s Aerials gives Australia a third Olympic medal in Vancouver…. a record for an Australian Olympic Winter Team.
The 28 year old from Melbourne triumphed in heavy fog on Cypress Mountain beating the all-powerful Chinese athletes for the top position on the podium.
She is the second Australian woman to win gold in the Women’s aerials event after Alisa Camplin’s win at the 2002 Salt Lake Games.
Lassila showed nerves of steel at Cypress ignoring the inclement weather conditions to perform her most difficult jumps. She landed both for a total score of 214.74.
All this after her career almost ended in screaming pain caused by a serious knee suffered while competing at the Torino Games four years ago.
Lassila’s gold is the fifth won by Australia at the Winter Games.
The two gold and a silver won in Vancouver by Lassila, Torah Bright in the Halfpipe and Dale Begg-Smith in the Moguls gives Australia its first ever three medal haul at the Winter Olympics.
It surpasses the two gold won by Steven Bradbury in Short Track and Alisa Camplin in Aerials in Salt Lake in 2002.
Australia followed up with another two medals at the 2006 Torino Olympics with gold to Dale Begg-Smith in Moguls and bronze to Camplin in the Aerials.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called to congratulate Lassila on her historic win. The PM had earlier told Parliament "can I just say to 28-year-old Lydia, the country's proud of you," Mr Rudd said.
She asked Mr Rudd to support her fellow athletes and provide funding for a proper training facility in Brisbane.
The QLD Government has spent $8m on a multi purpose pool and the Federal Government has been asked to put up $3.5m to construct a ramp. “I’m away most of the year and it’s pretty lonely sometimes. I’ve got my teammates and I love them to death. But you know it’s a long time away from home so there’s huge sacrifices involved. I’d love to be able to train at home. I was trying to persuade Kevin, my mate Kev, to build us a water ramp so that we can spend more time at home and also encourage some other youngsters to get involved with this sport. It’s an amazing sport and we Australians have done so well because of the support of the Australian government and their dedication to us and we’ve equally put our dedication to them.”
She said Mr Rudd promised to put it on the agenda straight away.
“Yep! He said just come through the back door and he’ll tee me up with a couple of guys to talk to” She said.
Mike Tancred
AOC-Vancouver
