​Australia have delivered a sensational performance in their first-ever Olympic Mixed Aerials Team event, finishing fourth in the final competition at the Livigno Aerials and Moguls Park at Milano Cortina 2026. 

As the only nation fielding two females and one male, the Australians put down some of their best jumps of the Games to qualify third for the four-team final, before ultimately placing fourth. 

​Article courtesy olympics.com.au / Images Copyright Chris Hocking

Abbey Willcox opened Australia’s qualification round with a strong back full-double full (81.78) before Women’s Aerials silver medallist 

Danielle Scott bettered her career-best score of 117.19 – set three days earlier in the women’s Final 1. Scott’s back full-full-full scored 120.20 as the top female jump of the competition.

​Reilly Flanagan rounded out the impressive qualifying performance with a back double full-full to score 87.06. 

The Flying Kangaroos returned to the top of the hill for the final alongside China, Switzerland and the United States. While Willcox and Scott both performed beautiful airs, they were unable to replicate their landings from qualification, scoring 64.86 and 95.30 respectively. 

Flanagan was the final Aussie to jump, embracing the pressure and delivering the best competition jump of his career, executing a back double-full-full for a personal best score of 95.88 to take Australia’s combined total to 256.04. 

​Flanagan said putting down a PB in an Olympic final was the “best feeling in my life.” 

“I was just super happy when I landed that and just so proud of this team, too. 

“This experience has been incredible for me, a lot of learnings… but with these experiences I’ll be able to hopefully grow a lot more and carry on through the next four years,” he said. 

Scott also said she was thrilled to build on her individual silver medal performance and put down an even better jump in the Teams event. 

“That was pretty special. I think it's a little bit of redemption for dragging my hands on that individual jump [in the women’s super final],” she said. 

“I just wanted to put everything out there again. I was way more nervous today, I just wanted to do the best for this team. 

“To be in a final at the Olympics is huge for us, we really put everything on the line… I'm just proud of these guys. We did a good job.” 

Team USA claimed gold, landing three exceptional jumps for a combined score of 325.35. Switzerland took silver with 296.91, highlighted by male skiers Noe Roth and Pirmin Werner landing two of the most difficult jumps in the sport. China finished in third, and while their two male skiers were unable to cleanly land their back double full-double full-full jumps, with a 5.1 degree of difficulty (DD), their scores remained very competitive and the combined total was enough to edge in front of Australia. 

Scott explained that the DD of both male skiers is what gave China their advantage in the final, despite Australia executing cleaner landings. 

“We don't have the degree of difficulty that all the other nations do, we are still a young team, you know, Reilly just started this sport a few years ago,” she said. 

“A landing is obviously important, it's 30% of the score, but with that higher degree of difficulty, it just factors in that way. 

“This is setting the pathway for the future and I'm pretty excited to see where we can go with this team now.” 

Knowing the Aussies are at a competitive disadvantage as the only team with two female skiers, Scott put the call out there to encourage more men to take up the sport. 

“I'm so proud of these guys, because we literally put it all out there, and we'll come back stronger, we'll have more DD and hopefully some more guys on the team if anyone's interested!”

Australia will compete in the Aerials Mixed Teams event for the first time at Milano Cortina 2026.

The Teams event debuted at Beijing 2022, with six nations taking part in the unique format. However, without a male aerial skier in Beijing, Australia was unable to compete, as teams cannot field three athletes of the same gender.

Article courtesy olympics.com.au / Images Copyright Chris Hocking
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With Reilly Flanagan making his Olympic debut in the Men’s Aerials event on Friday 20 February, Australia will contest the Team event for the first time. Silver medallist Danielle Scott and finalist Abbey Willcox have been named alongside Flanagan in the Team.

Coming into the Team event just three days after winning her first Olympic medal, Scott said she’s excited to carry her career best form in the Team event.

“I wouldn’t be here without my Team around me and to now go into the next event I hope to put down another great performance,” Scott said.

“Anything can happen in a Team event, and we’ve got [mixed teams] medals before, so I’m pretty excited and we’ll bring our best.”

While Flanagan still has his individual event before he can focus on the Team event, he said he’s taking inspiration from his Flying Kangaroos teammates.

“The girls did an amazing job yesterday,” he said. “They literally just showcased how good and dominant we are in this sport.

“With Aerials typically being an individual sport, I feel very grateful to have my two teammates here and to be able to make history being part of Australia’s first Mixed Aerials Team at the Olympics.”

After finishing 10th at her debut Games, Willcox said she’s excited to get another chance to perform on the world’s biggest stage alongside her teammates.

“I love the Team event because it feels like we’re competing as one and we’re all in it together,” Willcox said.

“Before every comp jump, we always hype each other up and show our support and belief in each other.”

The Mixed Teams competition sees three athletes – with at least one male and one female – perform one jump each. Scores are combined to determine standings, with the top four teams from qualification advancing to the final under the same format.

While men often compete with a higher Degree of Difficulty (DD), offering greater scoring potential, the increased complexity also comes with greater risk on landing.

“Most countries will have two males and one female, but our Team will have one male and two females,” Willcox explained.

“Reilly and I will be going off the double kicker and Dani will go off the triple kicker.

“With a higher degree of difficulty comes more challenging jumps and that makes the Teams competition so interesting. Some nations will go big and they might crash out, and that’s when we sneak in with our tricks and cleanly landed jumps.”

The Aerials Mixed Team event will held on the final day of competition at Milano Cortina, Saturday 21 February, with the action underway from 8.45pm AEDT.

It was a testing morning for the Men’s Aerial Qualification, with light swirling winds and snow making in-run speed and visibility challenging. However, with the heavy snow in recent days the landing hill was soft, making it safe for the field to pull out some of their bigger and more spectacular jumps. 

Swiss jumper Pirmin Werner won the first round of qualification, delivering a near perfect quad twisting triple back flip scoring 122.17 points. The biggest jump in qualifying came in the second round when Chinese jumper Tianma Li performed a quin twisting triple back with the highest degree of difficulty of the morning, winning the round with a huge 127.50 points. 

For the Australians, the men’s team is in the process of building strong talent for the future of the sport. At these Games, 21-year-old 
Reilly Flanagan
 was gaining valuable insight into competing in an Olympic field and the pressures of the Games. Flanagan is targeting the French Alps Games and is still in the process of building up his degree of difficulty for 2030. 

An elite gymnast before he transitioning to aerial skiing, Flanagan was excited to finally become an Olympian and is pleased with his decision to switch sports. 

“It's a dream come true. I’ve dreamt about being an Olympian for my whole life,” the Victorian Institute of Sport scholarship holder said. 

“I’ve no regrets changing over from the gymnastics to aerials now. No, none at all and I’m looking forward to shoot for my next Games.”

As part of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia program, Flanagan trains at the Geoff Henke Winter Olympic Training Centre in Brisbane and is keen to get back to the water jump facility there so he can continue to push up his degree of difficulty. 

“So, we'll have a little break after the Olympics, and then we'll get back into bit of strength and conditioning at home, and then straight back into the water ramping.

“After this is all done and dusted, I'll be very, very ready to go back to work and push the DD to get better every day.”

Flanagan put down two solid jumps in qualifying, a triple twisting double back and a double twisting double back scoring 74.02 and 87.57 respectively, finishing 20th overall. 

The final event on the aerials program is the Mixed Team event.

Team officials announced yesterday that Flanagan will be joined by fellow Snow Australia athletes Abbey Willcox and Olympic silver medallist Danielle Scott to take on the world’s best in this event.

It will be the first time that Australia has had a team in the Mixed Aerials event and will again add to Flanagan’s experience at these Games. 

“Well, we don't have quite the same difficulty across the board as the other teams,” said Flanagan. “But look, anything can happen in the team events, so we just need to put down the best jumps we can and just be as clean as possible and land our jumps.” 

Danielle Scott has won silver in Aerial Skiing, Australia’s sixth medal at an already historic Games for Australia. 

The 35-year-old brought her best form to Milano Cortina 2026. From qualifications through to finals, the flying Aussie looked the one to beat.  

​Article courtesy olympics.com.au / Images Copyright Chris Hocking

Scott executed an immaculate full-full-full in Final 1 to shoot straight into the Super Final with a score of 117.19 – the highest score of the day and a personal best result for Scott. 

In the one-jump Super Final, Scott’s full-full-full was beautiful in the air, but a deep landing saw her draw a score of 102.17 to take home silver.  

“To finally have this around my neck, I mean, it's taken four Olympics and it's been an incredible ride – a lot of highs, a lot of lows – but today I just put my heart out there, I left everything out there,” an emotional Scott said. 

“I jumped the way I wanted to, and I'm so grateful for my team around me for getting me to this point. This just means everything.” 

In a final where the top nine skiers were all performing triple jumps, it was the highest scoring women’s aerials final in history. 

Having not competed triples since 2023, Scott said she was thrilled to deliver a career-best performance on the world’s biggest stage. 

“Yeah, to see 117 on the scoreboard was pretty magic. I would like to have done that in the Super Final, but I can't get too greedy. I think today's been an awesome day.

“I hadn’t competed triples until now. You know, it’s been a rough ride, and I just kept believing the process was going to work. 

“It’s strategy as well — you’ve got to play the game sometimes, and my body has been through a lot. So I left [competing triples] to the right time and just believed that I've got the experience, I've done triples before and today was the day.” 

​Already a multiple World Cup winner, the Victorian Institute of Sport athlete’s previous best Olympic finish was 9th.  

Scott becomes Australia’s fourth Aerial Skiing medallist, exactly 24 years to the day after Alisa Camplin won Australia’s first gold medal in the sport.  

That moment sparked Scott’s Olympic dream and Camplin, Australia’s Winter Olympic Chef de Mission, was the first to congratulate Scott in Livigno.  

“It's been 12 years of coming in with the Olympic dream and now finally she just does the most beautiful jumps of her life, so I couldn't have been more happy for her,” Camplin said. 

“She's worked really hard for this, mentally and emotionally. Everyone could see that she has the most floaty, tightest, straightest, biggest, most gorgeous jumps. 

“I can’t tell you how much pressure is it is to be last in the start gate and to put that beautiful jump out there. She well and truly, over 12 years, over 12 months, over 12 hours, did everything possible to secure that performance and I couldn’t be more proud of her and the entire team behind her. 

“That was a next level female aerial final. The number of women doing full-full-fulls and landing them… it was one of the greatest competitions of all time, for her to be silver there was outstanding.” 

Abbey Willcox also qualified for final 1, finishing 10th overall with a textbook back full-double full in the 12-skier final, scoring 88.83. 

“It felt so good to be out there [in an Olympic final] and land my jumps as well. It’s a dream come true,” Willcox said. 

“As soon as I made the Olympic Team, it was like a weight off my shoulders, and then to go out and do this, it’s everything I really wanted to do so I feel really happy and proud of myself.” 

Fellow Aussie Olympic debutants Sidney Stephens and Airleigh Frigo placed 15th and 22nd respectively in the qualification round.  

Scott will have another shot at a medal in the Mixed Aerials Team event on Saturday 21 February. 

​Just prior to the first official training session of the Australian Aerials Team, it was announced that Laura Peel had made the difficult decision to pull out of what would have been her fourth Olympic Games.

Peel ruptured the ACL in her right knee at a pre-Olympic training camp in Airolo, Switzerland on 3 February and had been working with medical staff and strength and conditioning professionals to see if she could make it back in time to still compete at the Games. 

Article courtesy olympics.com.au

However aerial skiing is a high impact sport that requires the utmost leg strength and stability. For Peel to make it back, it was always going to be an uphill battle and unfortunately, she was unable to make it.  

Australian aerial skiing has a rich heritage and there is a significant pipeline of talented young skiers ready to fly high if they get the call. Over the last six Olympic Games, Australia has won five medals in aerial skiing giving the sport’s significant exposure across the country.  

Key to that is the AIS Geoff Henke Olympic Winter Training Facility in Brisbane - a water jump that has been crucial to Australia's Moguls and Aerials success. 

Just prior to the Olympics, our World Cup Team secured four places to the Games. With Peel, out a spot on the team opened up and there was always going to be a young Australian waiting to fill some very large shoes.  

Enter Sidney Stephens, a Western Australian elite gymnast and World Cup rookie who was excited to find out that she was heading to the Games when she answered the call.  

“Yeah, super excited. I think it was that yesterday morning that I found out and then got over here,” she said. Stephen had returned to Europe to ski after her last World Cup in Lake Placid in the USA.  

The Snow Australia and Victorian Institute of Sport athlete comes to Milano Cortina conscious of what Peel has been through to create this opportunity.  

“I think it is pretty mixed emotions at the same time, obviously, it was pretty hard to hear that Laura wasn't going to be able to compete here,” said Stephens. “I think everyone was really, rooting for her. 

“So, it is pretty, tough, but yeah, also exciting to be here.” 

Stephens is still very early in her aerial skiing career. Her World Cup debut only a little over 12 months ago at Lake Placid in the USA. She is still building up her degree of difficulty and will be jumping doubles at these Games, rather than Peel’s triples.  

Speaking to her after training on the Livigno aerial hill where she had the chance to test out some of her skills, she talked about what she planned to put down at the Games.  

“Today, I just did some lay-tucks [double somersault] and lay falls [double somersault with a single twist]. So pretty much the skills I'll be putting down in the competition.” 

While the 23-year-old hasn’t got the degree of difficulty of Peel and is unlikely to be in the medals at these Games it will be a valuable learning experience for her. 

Milano Cortina 2026 will form an experience that will arm Stephens with vital knowledge she can take forward in her career, understanding what it takes to perform on the world’s biggest stage. 

“I think I'm just really excited to be honest, trying to soak it all in,” she said. 

Stephens is on an AIS Athlete Education Scholarship to study at Griffith University.