At her first event of the season a year ago, the then 24-year-old suffered a season-ending knee injury during finals training at the Yaroslavl World Cup in Russia.

After six screws and a plate Willcox made a strong return to competition with a 14th place finish, narrowly missing the 12-woman final.

Ahead of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the World Cup bronze medallist is competing across six Olympic qualifying events where she’s hoping to produce personal-best performances while qualifying for an Olympic Games debut.

Like many Australian aerial skiers, Willcox grew up as a competitive gymnast. While she excelled in the sport, progressing to level eight, the high demands of artistic gymnastics resulted in an early retirement at the age of 15.

“I started gymnastics when I was three on the Central Coast,” Willcox said.

“My mum noticed I was always trying to roll around and do handstands and cartwheels, so she enrolled me in the local kinder gym. I started competing when I was about six or seven, in the levels program, until I was 15 years old.

“I retired when I was 15 because I was basically just burnt out from the sport. It was pretty hard to deal with at the time, because gymnastics was my whole life, and I still wanted to be an athlete. But gymnastics obviously just wasn’t the sport for me.”

Shortly after her retirement from gymnastics, Willcox went on a New South Wales family holiday and enrolled in a trampoline class at the Jindabyne Sport and Recreation Centre. At the end of the session Willcox was approached by one of the class instructors, who asked if she would be interested in trying aerial skiing.

“I remember one of the coaches, Anthony Khoury, coming up to me and first asking whether I knew how to ski and then if I had a history in gymnastics. He then asked if I would be interested in putting the two together and trying this thing called aerial skiing.

“I decided to wait until I was finished high school, so about three years later I joined the aerials program up at Mt Buller in Victoria to improve my skiing skills. From there, I joined the aerials development team and travelled overseas to the USA for the 2015-16 northern hemisphere winter.”

Having a history in skiing allowed Willcox to progress through the early stages of the sport quickly. Soon she was hitting her first singles on the water ramps and entering her first competitions on the North American circuit.

“It usually takes a few years to progress from uprights to singles on the water ramps, but because I knew how to handle my skis a little bit more I was able to progress quicker, which was very handy.”

In 2019 Willcox made her World Cup debut in Lake Placid, New York where she placed 23rd. She has since gone on to compete in 11 World Cups and improved significantly at each event.

“I was so stressed at my first World Cup, because I had come off the back of a pretty rough year.

“I was putting so much pressure on myself to perform well and to prove to everyone that I deserved to be there. So, I wish I had enjoyed it more.

“But once I got that first one out of the way, I really started to enjoy it and really loved experiencing what the World Cup circuit was all about.

“Once I stopped focusing on trying to prove myself and started focusing on just trying to improve my performance bit by bit each week, I really started to enjoy the sport for what it is.”

A career highlight for Willcox came a year later at the 2020 Deer Valley World Cup, where she jumped her way onto the World Cup podium for the first time in her career.

“That night was absolutely unreal.

“It felt pretty cool to me to be up on the podium, especially because before that I had never really competed in a final let alone a super final, let alone get on the podium!

“So that was such an incredible moment and my parents were there watching as well, so that was pretty special.”

After a heavily disrupted 2020 due to COVID-19, the Australian aerial team travelled to Europe ahead of the 2020-21 World Cup tour in mid-November. It was in Russia where she went down with a broken tibial plateau.

“I had an unlucky stack in the landing hill after one of my jumps and my ski got stuck in the snow.

“As I was sliding down hill, my knee just hyperextended because of my ski. I got carried off to the side, and while I was hoping it was just a niggle and it would be okay, I later found out I had broken my tibial plateau on my right knee.

“I returned home and went straight into hotel quarantine, which honestly was probably one of the hardest periods I have been through. I was really lucky to be able to call on lots of friends, family, my boyfriend and other athletes like Sami Kennedy-Sim who was going through the same thing at the same time.”

“I also spoke to the team sports psychologist, Barbara, every day. As well as the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA) athlete wellbeing manager, so it was great to have the support from the OWIA during that time.”

Eleven months, two knee surgeries and countless hours in the gym later Willcox is excited to see what she is capable of in the Olympic qualifying season.

“My goal for this season is just performing well and doing my best jumps on the day. I know that if I do my best jumps, and land my best jumps, then that will put me through to the finals. So that's my goal. That's what I'm focusing on.”

When asked what kept her going through some of the hardest days of rehab and during the return to snow process, Willcox said it was the possibility of competing at the Beijing Olympics that motivated her.

“On some of those really hard days when nothing else worked, it was just the drive to get to the Olympics. That's why I started this sport and that's what I have been training for, since day one.

“So the Olympics and representing Australia on the world stage is definitely what keeps the fire lit.”

Taylah O’Neill