Lydia Lassila, Liz Gardner and Jacqui Cooper have all progressed to the women’s aerials medal round following a successful qualification at Cypress Mountain this morning.

Australia’s other competitor Bree Munro missed the landing on both her triple somersaults for a total score of 143.46, placing her 18th and out of the final.

Lassila and Cooper opted for safety first, executing less difficult jumps today hoping that solid form and perfect landings would be enough - and it was.

Cooper was happy with how her plan unfolded.

“The aim of the day was to be flexible and start off with a double twisting double, see where that positioned us and me running later was fantastic because we were just watching the others go and seeing what scores they got and what we needed,” Cooper explained.

“I just wanted to get in and get to Wednesday’s final and do my big jumps which I’m look forward to unveiling.”

Lassila’s score of 167.55 qualified her in 9th and Cooper with 162.99 in 11th. Cooper was the second last jumper and it was a tense wait to see if the gamble of executing only a back Lay-Full (2.90 degree of difficulty) would pay off.
 
Gardner who was fourth after her first jump dropped back to tenth (164.60) after missing her second landing, however it was enough to reach her first Olympic final.

She was pleased with her performance and the condition of the venue.

“I had two solid jumps, they weren’t fantastic but landed,” Gardner said.

“The course is in amazing shape, the guys have been out here working for the past 5 days almost through the night just to get it going.

“No, the landings aren’t too soft and being Aussie we like it a little soft anyway, that’s what we’re used to, so it’s nice for us.”

Both Cooper and Lassila felt they were confused by some scoring decisions in qualifying.

“I saw Xinxin from China do a Full-Full-Full and she crashed it and got 88 points, so, that doesn’t make sense. I stomped a Double-Full-Full and got 85,” Lassila said.

“Even though her degree of difficulty is higher, she still crashed and that’s something I don’t really understand.”

Cooper expected higher scores from her jumps but knew qualifying was all that mattered.

“It would have been a big problem had I not made it, but Lydia is in, I’m in, Liz is in, we have three Aussies in. As long as we’re in and we’ll leave the judges to sort it,” Cooper said.

The relief on the faces of the Australian athletes and coaches was evident after qualifying concluded. Four years ago in Torino Lassila suffered a terrible knee injury in her second qualifying jump and Cooper suffered the same fate in training before the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Both are serious medal contenders in 2010.

Lassila, 28, has two world cup victories this season and with her world record score of 220.91 just last month this could be her time.

Cooper has had a low key season but is building nicely and the fairytale finish to her five Olympic campaigns is not out of the question. At 37 she is the oldest athlete in the final by six years. No one has more experience and no one has won more aerial skiing events in history than Cooper.

Alla Tsuper of Belarus qualified first with 195.76 from her sensational triple somersaults. All of China’s four athletes placed in the top eight. With a clean sweep a real possibility. Xinxin Guo has the degree of difficulty to match that of Lassila and Cooper.

Andrew Reid
AOC - Vancouver