Jacqui Cooper stands alone as the greatest winner in women's World Cup aerial skiing history after taking the 18th victory of her career with a world record points score in Deer Valley, Utah.
Nearly five years after the accident that put her out of the Salt Lake Winter Games, 34-year-old Cooper scored a massive 219.81 points on the 2002 Olympic site, 6.45 points more than the record mark she set last year in the 2006 Torino Games.
Jacqui Cooper stands alone as the greatest winner in women's World Cup aerial skiing history after taking the 18th victory of her career with a world record points score in Deer Valley, Utah.
Nearly five years after the accident that put her out of the Salt Lake Winter Games, 34-year-old Cooper scored a massive 219.81 points on the 2002 Olympic site, 6.45 points more than the record mark she set last year in the 2006 Torino Games.
Her closest competitor, 2005 World Champion Nina Li of China, was more than 33 points further back on 186.64 points, while Alla Tsuper of Belarus took the bronze with 183.38 points.
Cooper's Olympic Winter Institute team-mate Liz Gardner was in 13th place on 74.81 points after missing a place in the ten-woman final.
The win gives Cooper one victory more than the 17 collected by former team-mate Kirstie Marshal and Canadian skier Marie-Claud Asselin.
Jumping in heavy snow and strong headwinds, Cooper earned 113.60 points for her qualifying round jump, a triple twisting triple somersault. With conditions deteriorating, the veteran Mt Buller skier also landed her double twisting triple in the final round, scoring 106.21 from the judges for the record total of 219.81.
The result would have placed her ninth in the men's competition.
"Most of all I'm really proud of how I handled the conditions today," Cooper said. "I've never jumped such a high degree of difficulty in conditions this bad before, because in the past we would have downgraded the jumps to doubles."
"We thought about doing that for the final, but since re-jigging my technique I really feel confident about jumping triples, even in blizzard conditions."
"The snow was dumping so much that I couldn't get enough speed on the in-run and we ended up having to take down the sponsors' banners at the top of the hill so I could step higher up."
"The win is nice, and 18 is great, but I'm so happy about how I jumped and how I have been jumping over the past weeks."
"Last week in Mont Gabriel it was so warm and soft it was like Buller on a late Spring day, and then today the conditions were the opposite, but I managed to handle them both."
"It was a great team effort today, from all the coaches and the guys raking the snow off and all the other people helping me."
Cooper now sits on 325 points on the World Cup standings, 45 ahead of Nina Li on 280 points, with Torino gold medallist Evelyne Leu of Switzerland in third place on 158 points.
Earlier in the day, Olympic gold medallist Dale Begg-Smith finished in ninth place in the men's moguls. Begg-Smith over-rotated in his second jump at the bottom of the course, landing badly and forfeiting any chance of a podium. I
t was only the second time he has missed a medal in the past eleven events.
New member of the OWI team Ramone Cooper was again the best of the remaining Australians finishing in 26th place, with Michael Robertson in 41st position and Nick Fisher in 49th place.
The gold medal went to US skier Nathan Roberts, the win giving him a total of 145 points on the World Cup standings, 16 points ahead of the Begg-Smith.
OWIA