Danielle Scott

Fast Facts

Sport: Freestyle Skiing
Event: Aerials
Olympic History: Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022
Highlights: 3x Olympian, 2x World Cup Tour 2nd overall
Coach: David Morris
Year Born: 1990
State Born: NSW

About Danielle

At seven years-old Danielle Scott was the youngest Australian gymnast to be awarded a gymnastics scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport. After many years competing at an elite level, she retired from the sport at the age of 13. For the next three years Danielle continued to play many different sports before being introduced to aerials by five-time winter Olympian Jacqui Cooper.

Despite never having skied before, Danielle was excited to try aerial skiing and determined to excel at it. She made her debut on the World Cup circuit in the 2011-12 season where she made every final and was awarded the International Ski Federation Rookie of the Year.

After winning bronze at the 2013 World Championships, Danielle made her Olympic debut at Sochi 2014. She made it through to final one before just missing the eight-woman second final on a countback, as she shared an equal score (76.23) with Zhanbota Aldabergenova of Kazakhstan.

Following the Games, Danielle continued to improve and in 2015 she was the top Australian performer on the World Cup circuit. After countless incredible performances, including her first World Cup win coming in Russia, Danielle finished the 2014-15 tour ranked third in the world.

She continued her end of season podium streak, finishing both the 2016 and 2017 seasons ranked second in the world. At the 2017 World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain Danielle claimed her second World Championship medal winning silver in the women’s aerials event.

In her second Olympic campaign at PyeongChang 2018 Danielle and teammate Laura Peel were the only two Aussies to progress from the qualification rounds to final one. Needing to be in the top nine to progress from final one to final two, Danielle backslapped while attempting a back full-full to ultimately score 57.01 to finish the competition 12th.

Danielle took some time away from the sport following the 2018 Games. She made her return in September 2019 at a training camp in Switzerland and unfortunately sustained an ACL injury upon her return which ruled her out of the 2019-20 season.

After a year of rehab, Danielle made a triumphant return to competition in January 2021 at the Deer Valley World Cup in the USA. She scored 90.59 points for her back double full-full in the final to win the gold medal.

During the 2020-21 season the 31-year-old also took triple backflips to snow for the first time in her career. At her first event competing triples, Danielle won two Europa Cup gold medals. She went on to compete at the 2021 World Championships, where she narrowly missed the podium in fourth place.

In the lead up to Beijing 2022, Danielle performed a triple twisting double back somersault in Ruka, Finland which helped her to a near perfect score of 102.93 points and her fifth World Cup victory.

At her third Olympics she started the aerials with the fourth best jump in the opening qualifying round, scoring 96.23, advancing her through to final one.

Danielle was unable land either of her jumps in the finals, ending her Olympic campaign in tenth position.