Australian aerial skier Laura Peel has taken bronze overnight at the World Cup season opener at Shimao Lotus Mountain in China.
The two time Olympian from Canberra, performed her first ever triple back somersaults in competition with great success, scoring 87.92 points in the first round of finals with a lay-tuck-full, and 86.65 in the medal round with a full-tuck-full.
In taking bronze, the performance marks the tenth World Cup podium of the 30 year old athlete’s career (2 gold, 3 silver, 5 bronze).
“It’s an amazing start to the season. Competing with triples at a World Cup was a big milestone of mine, and to come away with a podium makes it even sweeter” said Peel after the event.
“The conditions were really good. We all took a couple of days to adjust to a much steeper landing hill than what we had been training on in Finland, but the sun was out and there was minimal wind which made conditions great for jumping.”
Peel finished narrowly behind Belarus aerialist Aliaksandra Ramanousk 93.44 and China’s Mengtao Xu scoring 105.53 with the judges.
