Australian aerial skier Lydia Ierodiaconou has made a remarkable comeback from her knee reconstruction, winning a World Cup event in Deer Valley.

And in an equally amazing return, Alisa Camplin finished seventh in the Utah event, just three months after having the same allograft surgery as Ierodiaconou.

It was also the first time four Australians had made a World Cup final.

Ierodiaconou's last competition was the World Championships in March 2005. She injured her knee in water jump training in June, and had her reconstruction later that month, and has had just 15 days of on-snow jumping since her return to training.

She led the field after the first jump with a triple twisting double somersault that earned 98.52 points, then landed her second triple twisting double for an overall score of 196.51 points, more than ten points clear of her nearest rival.

"I was really just treating today like training," Ierodiaconou said. "I was just concentrating on nice take-offs, nice take-offs, and it was just autopilot really."

"I wasn't nervous, and was just thinking I've done all this before."

"It hasn't really hit me yet that I've won, but it's good to back. It's really good to be back."

"And the knee has come up well - there's a bit of bruising from the knee brace, and I need to get that altered, but otherwise it's good."

Manuella Mueller of Switzerland took the silver medal with 185.76 points, and defending World Cup champion Nina Li of China claimed the bronze on 183.65 points.

Camplin, who skied for the first time on Christmas day, jumped a restricted difficulty routine of a single twisting double somersault and a double twisting double, but was still good enough to take seventh on 171.97 points. She had trained on snow for less than a week prior to the competition.

In a welcome return to the top ten, Liz Gardner was one place higher in sixth position on 173.59 points.

The disappointing result came from Jacqui Cooper, the three time World Cup champion finishing in 21st place after missing the landing on her double twisting triple somersault.

But she was delighted to be back performing triple somersaults, and doing them with a far better technique than she had prior to Salt Lake 2002.

Bree Munro finished in 12th place, gaining the last of the top 60 per cent of field results she needed to qualify for Games selection, while Lainie Cole, who has already met the qualifying standard, was in 26th place.

A second World Cup will be held in Deer Valley on Sunday morning AEST.

OWI