Back-to-back for Peel, first podium for Frigo
Published Mon 27 Jan 2025
Courtesy OWIA
Laura Peel has capped an extraordinary weekend by securing back-to-back gold medals at the World Cup event in Lac-Beauport, Canada. Her outstanding performance was again successfully jumping spectacular triple back somersaults leading to a double Aussie podium celebration on the second day of competition, with teammate Airleigh Frigo achieving her first career podium finish in third place.
Australian snowsports athletes have had an impressive few days of competition which started with following Scotty James gold medal in the X-Games snowboard halfpipe, Ben Tudhope's pair of Para Snowboard World Cup podiums, Matt Graham's silver in dual moguls and now aerial skiing double gold for Peel and bronze for Frigo.
In difficult conditions, four Australian women qualified for top 12 finals with Danielle Scott second, Peel fourth, Abbey Willcox tenth and Frigo 12th, the most of any nation in the women’s event.
In the first round of finals, Peel advanced to the super-final medal round in first place after scoring 94.65 points for her lay-full-full triple somersault jump. Joining Peel in her first super-final was 25-year-old Frigo from Brisbane in fifth after scoring 83.47 with a full-full double somersault. Unlucky to miss the super-final was Abbey WIllcox in seventh on 80.95 and Danielle Scott, eighth on 80.50.
In the super-final, Peel increased her degree of difficult adding an extra twist in her triple, scoring 102.17 for her full-full-full jump to record her 11th career World Cup victory. American Karenna Elliott was a distant second on 87.42, and Frigo celebrated her first podium in third, scoring 76.85 for her lay-full double back somersault and smashing her previous best World Cup finish of 12th.
“I feel relieved. It’s been all kinds of weather and it’s hard to stay calm up there and trust yourself” said Peel, the 35-year-old double World Champion from Canberra.
“I had my plan from the beginning. I didn’t want to change it. I wanted to be able to execute those jumps in all conditions. The difficulty will ramp up going into the (Milan-Cortina 2026) Games, and I want to be ready.
“It’s been some really early mornings and long days. I’ll relax for a couple of days, get some good sleep, and get back to work.”
Missing out on finals were other Flying Kangaroos Elise Coleiro in 21st place, Sidney Stephens 29th and Reilly Flanagan 31st.
After three events, Peel has surged into first place on the World Cup standings on 210 points. Mengtao Xu of China follows in second on 184 and Elliott of the USA is third with 160 Australia also has two more athletes in the top-10, Scott in fifth place on 144 points and Frigo in tenth with 83 points.
The next World Cup event for the aerial skiing athletes is on February 7 in Deer Valley, USA, on the iconic “White Owl” 2002 Olympic Winter Games jump site, where Alisa Camplin made history by winning Australia’s first-ever skiing gold medal.
