Renee McElduff became only the sixth Australian womenβs aerial skier to record a World Cup win when she captured gold in Lake Placid, USA, this morning (Australian time).
The 23-year-old Olympic Winter Institute of Australia/Victorian Institute of Sport athlete joins Kirstie Marshall, Jacqui Cooper, Alisa Camplin, Lydia Lassila and Laura Peel as the only female athletes with this achievement.
The win and the 100 World Cup points that accompany the gold medal have sky-rocketed McElduffβs world ranking from 14 to five in just 24 hours.
She finished ahead of Russiaβs second placed Veronika Korsunova and Bulgarian Hanna Huskova in third in the revised one jump formatted event.
McElduffβs first win in 20 World Cup starts in three years was a result that has left her stunned.
βIβm very surprised,β McElduff admitted.
βIt is absolutely the highlight of my career.β
The Australian thought her weekend had peaked in yesterdayβs day one of a double-header in Lake Placid when she reached her first super-final, recorded a World Cup career best result of sixth and achieved her highest score for the jump she chose in one of the finals.
How wrong she was.
Using the same jump β a full full, which won her a place in yesterdayβs super-final – McElduff scored 84.42, an improvement on yesterdayβs 84.10.
Todayβs score was slightly more than a point better than the Russianβs 83.47. Huskova, using the same jump as the other two podium finishers, was awarded 82.84.
After McElduff finished in sixth place on day one of Lake Placid, coach Jeff Bean predicted βbigger and better thingsβ were ahead for McElduff. How right he was.
McElduff said that her significant improvement this season is all related to her newly-found confidence.
McElduffβs goal going into todayβs event was to finish in the top six and is now hoping to reach at least one more super-final in the seasonβs remaining two events.
Her OWIA/VIS teammates Laura Peel and Danielle Scott ended todayβs event in minus 20 degree Celsius conditions in 10th and 21st places respectively.
Todayβs win is the latest addition to Australiaβs aerial squadβs highly successful season, which includes Peel winning the World Championships title and Scott taking the World Cup silver medal in Beijing at the start of the season.
The one jump format of todayβs event was used to give organisers the opportunity to stage a nationβs team event on the same day.
Due to rules requiring participating nations to be represented by men and women athletes, Australia was not eligible. The only Aussie male World Cup aerial skier, Olympic silver medallist David Morris, has elected not to compete this season.
The OWIA/VIS aerial squad now has several weeks to prepare for the seasonβs second last event in Moscow, Russia, on February 21.
Results
Womenβs World Cup aerial skiing, Lake Placid, USA
1. Renee McElduff (AUS), 2. Veronika Korsunova (RUS), 3. Hanna Huskova (BLR), 4. Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya (BLR), 5. Olga Polyuk (UKR), 6. Anastasiya Novosad (UKR), 10. Laura Peel (AUS), 21. Danielle Scott (AUS).
Womenβs World Cup aerial skiing standing after five rounds
1. Kiley McKinnon (USA)267, 2. Xu Mengtao (CHN) 249, 3. Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya (BLR) 198, 4. Veronika Korsunova (RUS) 191,5. Renee McElduff (AUS) 188, 6. Kong Fanyu (CHN) 180, 8. Danielle Scott (AUS) 164, 13. Laura Peel (AUS) 125.
