Lydia Lassila has added a bronze medal to the gold she won in the opening round of the 20008/09 Freestyle World Cup, and holds the number one aerial skiing world ranking as the season heads into the Christmas break.
But the weekend in China has ended less happily for Australian Institute of Sport team-mate Jacqui Cooper, the 35-year-old defending World Cup champion sustaining a broken nose when she missed the landing on her second jump in Changchun’s Adventure Mountain.
Lassila was lying in ninth place after the opening round of jumps, her 82.66 points well below the leading score of Chinese skier Shanshan Zhao, who landed a near perfect double twisting triple somersault for 109.06 points.
But the 26-year-old Australian came back strongly with her second triple twisting double jump, collecting 96.40 points from the judges to climb six places up the leader board
Zhao went on to claim the gold with a total score of 201.63 points, the first victory of her career, while team-mate Nina Li took the silver medal on 192.81 points.
Lassila’s 179.06 point-total prevented a Chinese trifecta, edging out Xinxin Guo for bronze by just one-hundredth of a point.
“It was really tricky out there again today,” Lassila said.
“It was better weather than yesterday, but the wind was fishtailing around all day, a headwind one moment and then a tailwind.”
“My first jump was way too big, and although I skied out of the landing I fell at the bottom of the hill, so I was happy to make the final.”
“The second jump was a beauty, really nice.”
“I’m very happy with the weekend’s results.”
Cooper ended in 11th place on 146.34 points, a disappointing result after her opening day silver, but the five-time World Cup champion has been cleared of any other damage from her fall.
The third Australian in the field, Liz Gardner, finished in 16th place and out of the finals with a one-jump total of 72.60 points.
Lassila leads the World Cup standings on 160 points, 46 ahead of Zhao.
Canadian Veronika Bauer is third in the title chase on 105 points, just one point ahead of Cooper.
The third round of the 2008/09 season will be held in Lake Placid, USA, on January 18.
