Lydia Lassila has reinforced her Vancouver medal credentials by claiming a second consecutive aerial skiing victory.

The defending World Cup champion kept her new triple twisting triple somersault in reserve, but still managed to take the gold medal in Lake Placid, as AIS/VIS team-mate Bree Munro delivered a personal best fourth place.

Lassila posted a two jump score of 203.38 to defeat Li Nina of China on 197.56 and her compatriot Zhang Xin on 181.72, while Munro scored 175.71 points to eclipse her previous best result by two places.

The 28-year-old Mt Buller skier performed a single twisting triple and a double twisting triple to take the gold, not her new triple twisting jump, but she did them well enough to win by a comfortable margin.

She was delighted with the victory, but equally happy that the decision to move up from the triple twisting double somersaults of her early career to triple somersaults was paying off.

“I’m very happy,” Lassila said.

“I had a bit of a sore body yesterday so I didn’t do many jumps, and I’m very tired at the moment – everyone is tired.”

“So I thought, OK, let’s just get up to what we can (in degree of difficulty).”

“They were such nice jumps in training today and so I decided, I’m not pushing it, and that turned out to be the smartest call. I’m really happy I did that.”

“The triples are really going well now and it’s great to have the flexibility (of a large range of jumps).”

“That’s really what I wanted, what I’ve been working at.”

Liz Gardner and Jacqui Cooper both missed a spot in the final round of jumping, Gardner finishing in 18th place and Cooper two spots further back.

In the men’s event, David Morris also missed out on a second jump, placing 21st overall.

The final World Cup event prior to Vancouver 2010 will be held in Mont Gabriel, Canada, on January 31, Australian time.