Australia’s aerial skiers had their first day of training at Cypress Mountain yesterday, the women turning out in the morning while the men got to experience the competition environment by jumping under lights.

With the triple kickers not ready for the women’s session, Jacqui Cooper, Liz Gardner, Lydia Lassila and Bree Munro were restricted to double somersaults, but were content to downgrade their degree of difficulty as they got to know the new site.

David Morris also kept his training session to double somersaults, coming away from the session satisfied despite the difficult conditions.

“It went rather well,” Morris said.

“The conditions are a bit tricky because it has obviously been very warm but they’ve done the best job they can to make the jump as good as they can. They’ve got dry ice tubes through the kickers to keep the core cold and they’ve got fire extinguishers keeping the faces of the jumps cold.

“We had a clear evening and very little wind so it was actually as perfect as it could be given the situation.”

Barry White
AOC – Cypress Mountain