Daisy Thomas wins Australia's first Big Air Youth Olympic Games medal

Freestyle skier Daisy Thomas has won Australia’s first ever Winter Youth Olympic medal in Big Air, claiming silver at the Winter Youth Olympic Games (WYOG) in Gangwon, South Korea today.  

Daisy cleanly executed two of her three jumps, a left double 10 safety and a switch left bio 9 safety, to claim the silver medal with a combined score of 172.75, just 7.25 points behind gold medallist Flora Tabanelli from Italy.

The 16-year-old, who made her World Cup debut in December last year, said she was happy to land on the podium after her fifth place finish in slopestyle.

“I came here with the goal of getting on the podium, I’ve had the Youth Olympic medal on my phone’s home screen for over a year now, and to now have the medal in my hands feels so surreal!” Daisy said. “I was pretty close to the podium in slopestyle, so heading into this morning I was pretty confident but also pretty excited and determined to get on the podium. 

“I went in confident in my own ability, in my training and in my two tricks. I had a game plan and ultimately just had to execute that plan, which I did. 

“I was pretty stoked after scoring high on my first jump (91.00), it took the pressure off a little bit and set me up well for the rest of the competition.” 

The competition saw athletes perform three different tricks, with the accumulation of their best two scores making up their final score.

Daisy’s silver is Australia’s third medal of the Games, just one off Australia’s most ever WYOG medal haul (four at Lillehammer 2016), with a week of competition still to come.

Australian free ski coach Nicko Drew said he is proud of what Daisy achieved.

“I am extremely happy with Daisy’s performance today,” Mr Drew said.  “Daisy is such a self-motivated and driven athlete, constantly striving to be better.

“We had a plan coming into this event, to show the judges why she deserves to be on the podium by clearly demonstrating good amplitude, good control and strong grabs and its great we were able to do just that. 

“We came out today and wanted to set the tone from the start, kicking off with her best trick in the first run (left double 10 safety) to put the pressure on the rest of the field, and then go from there,” he continued. 

“It’s great she managed to stick to the plan and execute some really solid jumps.”

Teammate Joey Ellis was also in action today in the men’s big air event, the 17-year-old from Thredbo wrapped up his Youth Olympic campaign with a 5th place with a score of 134.00.