Jacqui Cooper has a chance to make aerial skiing history this weekend when she competes at the Freestyle World Championships in Italy.

And Olympic Winter Institute team-mate Dale Begg-Smith will also be looking to write his name in the record book as one of only three men to simultaneously hold Olympic gold, the World Cup title and the World Championship.

If Cooper takes the world title on the slopes of Madonna di Campiglio, she will become the first woman to win dual world crowns, her second coming eight years after the first.

Cooper first won the biennial World Championship in 1999 in Meiringen, Switzerland, the first major result of her career.
 
Three World Cup titles followed, leading up to the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics and the disastrous knee injury which put her out of competition for three years.
 
Winning this year's World Cup globe three weeks ago completed the 34-year-old veteran's successful return to the sport, but a history-making World Championship title would be a treasured additional prize.
 
Begg-Smith proved in Torino that he has a big-occasion temperament.
 
The 22-year-old also goes to Madonna in a rich vein of form, having won the last four World Cup events of the season and five of the last six.
 
If he wins, he will join two legends of the sport - Frenchman Edgar Grospiron and Canadian Jean-Luc Brassard - as a holder of the triple crown.
 
Both Australian skiers will meet tough competition, however.
 
Cooper faces Torino gold medallist Evelyne Leu, another woman who executes triple somersaults, and defending world champion Nina Li of China, whose superb form in the air is always a threat.
 
Begg-Smith will have multiple challengers - US skier Nathan Roberts, a double gold medallist in the past season, World Cup runner-up Guilbaut Colas of France and Canadian Alexandre Bilodeau, renowned for his jumps, to name three.
 
The Australian team for the championships also includes aerial skier Liz Gardner, and mogul skiers Ramone Cooper, Nick Fisher and Michael Robertson.
 
Compatriot Sarah Sauvey has already completed her championship outing, finishing in 12th place in a 19-woman field in the relatively new discipline of ski cross.
 
The schedule for the rest of the titles is as follows
(Australian Eastern Summer time):

Fri. March 9
- 9pm AEST  Mogul skiing qualification
Sat. March 10
- 2:45am AEST Aerial skiing qualification
- 5am AEST Mogul skiing final
- 9pm AEST Dual mogul skiing qualification
Sun. March 11
- 12:15am AEST Aerial skiing final
- 4:30am AEST Dual mogul skiing final