Australia featured on the men’s and women’s Aerial Skiing podiums at the 2017 Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships, with Danielle Scott claiming silver and David Morris bronze in a best ever Australian Aerial Skiing Team performance at a ‎World Championships.  
 
It is the first time Morris has made the podium this season with the 32-year-old overcoming injury to claim his first World Championship medal.
 
“I’ve had pretty bad training and a couple of injuries which have kept me out of my peak form,” Morris said.
 
“I got all the way to the super final and had a little freak out at the top, but went big and it worked out pretty well,” he said.  
 
The Olympic silver medallist’s strategy was to pay attention to his competition.
 
“I qualified in a good position so we had the opportunity to watch some people do some jumps before me and then I let the coaches decide if I could downgrade my jump or not.
 
“So in the first final run I got to do a full-full-full which is a little bit easier. It saved the harder tricks for later and that was really the plan and that went nice and smoothly.”
 
Morris was ranked second after final one, fifth after final two before finishing third in the ultimate round. His final jump, a back double full-full-full earned a score of 114.13.
 
The result has invigorated Morris to push for further Olympic success at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang.
 
“I’m feeling pretty good about it but again anything can happen in any competition as shown today, lots of surprises and some incredible jumps and some people crashing that don’t normally crash.
 
“I’m excited for the next year, I know the competition is going to be good as shown today.”
 
Consistency has been the key to Scott’s season and the 27-year-old continued this trend in Friday’s final, progressing through each round with steady performances.
 
“It is hard to be consistent because we deal with so many variables, whether it is weather or just your own nerves or ability and health,” Scott said. 
 
“For me I love to go out there and have as much fun as I can. If I’m not having a good day that’s usually when I can’t perform. I love to go out there with the best feeling that I can.”
 
Scott’s silver medal is an improvement on the bronze that she won at the 2013 World Championships. 
 
Her first jump, a back full-full scored 81.27 points for sixth position. In the round of nine she performed a back double full-full, which received a score of 84.95. The Sochi Olympian saved her best for last, performing a career best back full-double full in the final round to score 94.47.
 
US Skier Ashley Caldwell outperformed the all-star field, successfully landing a back full-double full-full, which scored 109.29 points, the first time a woman has landed the jump (which was pioneered by 2010 Olympic Champion Lydia Lassila) in competition.
 
In Friday’s final Lassila was unable to stick the landing on her first jump, a back full-full, and finished 11th with 62.37 points. 
 
Sochi Olympian Samantha Wells scored 69.30 for her first jump, also a back full-full, to finish 10th overall.
 
The reigning women’s World Champion Laura Peel progressed to the round of nine but she came unstuck when attempting to land a back full-double full and her 62.39 points relegated her to eighth position overall. 
 
The men’s event was won by US Skier Jonathan Lillis who scored 125.79 for his final round jump.

Australians dominated women’s Aerials qualification at the 2017 FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships, filling four of six qualification places in the first round.
 
The Aussies are ranked second, fourth, fifth and sixth going into Final 1 of 12 athletes.   
 
In the men’s event, Sochi Olympic Games silver medallist David Morris continued the trend, qualifying in fourth position with a score of 112.83.
 
Leading the charge for Australia in the women’s qualifying was reigning World Champion Laura Peel who scored a commanding 91.65 to progress to the final in second position.  
 
Peel was second to go in today’s qualifying.
 
“I like going early but sometimes you don’t want to go at the very beginning,” Peel said.  
 
“We’re dealing with changing conditions, it’s hot and the wind affects us here, sometimes it’s good to have a couple of people in front of you but today it worked out and I was really happy,” she said.  
 
Sam Wells booked her finals berth with an 88.83 and fourth position overall, Danielle Scott was fifth with 87.06 and four-time Olympian Lydia Lassila was sixth with 85.65.
 
Peel said the Aussies were in good spirits after a strong team result.
 
“Really nice when everybody does well,” Peel said. “We spend so much time together, we all live together so it’s nice when everyone’s pleased.
 
“It really shows the depth of our team, which adds to our success.”  
 
US skier Ashley Caldwell put her rivals on notice, qualifying with a huge 103.68 for first place in the women's event and the Aussies know they will need to be at their best if they are to clinch gold.  
 
“She’s doing triples with more difficulty so she deserves that top qualifying position," Peel said. 
 
“But tomorrow we have to do three jumps so it’s also about consistency.”
 
The men’s and women’s Aerial Skiing World Championship Finals at Sierra Nevada (ESP) begin at 5:30am AEDST.

Final events will be lived streamed at:https://www.skiandsnowboard.org.au/2017-snowboard--freestyle-world-champs/
 
 
 

The final jumps of the 2016/17 Aerial Skiing season are here with tonight’s qualifying round for the World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain and the Flying Kangaroos Aerial Ski team could bag more than the ten medals already in their collective haul.

It’s been an amazing Aerial season to date with every one of the five-member squad contributing to Australia’s ten medal tally.

Amid the joy of Lydia Lassila’s third gold and Laura Peel’s bronze last week in Moscow, some disappointment for Danielle Scott who was so close to clinching the world overall top spot and Dave Morris and Sam Wells who would have liked to have made the final, it was up and out of Russia very early last Sunday to prepare for the Sierra Nevada World Championships.

The setting is beautiful – or as Sochi Silver medallist Dave Morris said, “I don't think there's ever been a cooler backdrop than the mogul course in Sierra Nevada.”

Because of warmer-than usual temperatures the jumps were not quite ready for training yesterday and was cancelled as organisers and team technicians worked together to strengthen the three Aerials jumps’ groups ahead of the qualifications which begin in less than twelve hours at 2.15am Friday (AEDT).

“The usual technique in the case of high temperatures consists of putting ice in the centre of the slope, which helps for a better restraint,” Organisers stated.

The format for Aerial Skiing World Championships mirrors that of the Olympic Winter Games with an additional finals round, requiring the athletes to execute a third and different jump if they make it to the final top six.

The top twelve qualifiers advance to a final round of nine before a Super Final for the top six.

Australia’s Flying Kangaroos Aerial Skiing team have landed ten medals so far this season and will be hoping to add to that tally before the finals have been completed on Saturday morning at 5.30am AEDT.

The finals can be watched live on Eurosport or on live stream at Ski & Snowboard Australia’s website https://www.skiandsnowboard.org.au/2017-snowboard--freestyle-world-champs/
 

Australia’s Flying Kangaroo Aerial skiers are in Moscow for the World Cup Final this weekend and will be jumping from a massive multi-storey high scaffold set-up just outside of the city centre.

Following Lydia Lassila and Danielle Scott’s one-two podium finish last weekend in Belarus, the Flying Kangaroos remained in Minsk for two days ahead of the Moscow final.

“All the athletes are in great shape,” coach Jeff Bean said.  “We had a great few days jumping prior to coming here (Moscow).”

“Everyone is jumping better and becoming more confident as we continue to train their jumps. They are ready for Moscow and for the World Championships next week in Sierra Nevada.”

The Ladies overall title will come down to Scott and China’s Xu Mengtao. Scott narrowly regained the yellow bib in Minsk and is sitting on 402 points - just a hair’s breadth ahead of  Mangtao’s 400 points.

In six competitions this season Scott has one victory and three runner-up results plus a top ten placing, as she seeks to improve on a 2015/16 season in which she finished second overall in the Aerial Skiing World Cup to USA’s Ashley Caldwell.  

With Scott’s double-flipping precision and exceptional form matched up against Xu’s explosiveness and triple-flipping degree of difficulty, the drama developing ahead of this weekend’s competition and the battle for first overall is high.

Third overall currently belongs to Lassila, and the 35-year-old mother of two has written one of the most remarkable stories in Freestyle this season with two gold medal podiums.

Laura Peel and Samantha Wells have shown great consistency and find themselves just outside the overall top-ten. in eleventh and twelfth places respectively.

Dave Morris has not had the season he was hoping for, coping with niggling injuries earlier in the tour but is now feeling more like his Olympic self. Morris enters the final event on sixteenth place overall and has been using the current World Cup season to test out some new advanced skills.

Morris enters the final event in 16th place on the world ranking leader board.

Conditions in Moscow are different to normal with the aerial skiers jumping from a scaffolding set up, which requires two elevators at the rear to transport the athletes to the top.

“The in-run is steeper and the transition area in front of the jumps is longer than normal so the visuals are slightly different,” coach Bean said.
 
“We are fortunate to have a very experienced group of athletes who have jumped here in Moscow for the last three years as well as in Beijing so we are jumping and training as per normal.”
 
"The weather here is currently challenging and looks like it will continue down that track with warm condition and rain, we are happy to have a good training foundation and feel ready regardless of the conditions."

Competition begins in Moscow on Saturday, with qualifying commencing at 10.05pm (AEDT) and finals from 3am on Sunday morning, which can be watched live on Eurosport.