Peel wins in Canada with high scoring triple somersault

Courtesy OWIA

Laura Peel has produced the highest scoring jump of the season to win gold at the World Cup aerial skiing event in Le Relais, Canada.
 
The double World Champion was again the only female competitor to jump spectacular triple back somersaults, scoring a huge 109.15 points with her lay-full-full jump to record the eighth World Cup victory of her career.
 
Second place went to American Ashley Caldwell who scored 93.06 points, with Ukrainian Anastasiya Novosad rounding out the podium in third with 90.59 points.
 
Peel’s teammate Danielle Scott also had a strong event and was unlucky not to land on the podium in fourth place. Scott had the highest scoring jumps in both qualifications and the first round of finals, and in the super final medal round scored 89.18 with her triple twisting double back somersault to just miss the podium by 1.41 points.
 
“I am so happy and honestly a bit relieved” said Peel, the 33-year-old from Canberra.
 
“It was a really tough start to the season, I wasn’t jumping how I wanted to in the competition, but I had been training well, and today I was able to do my training jumps in the competition, and I am so happy and just really relieved as well.”
 
“The plan doesn’t really change, keep working hard and doing my jumps, building my degree of difficulty and I just want to keep executing jumps like that every day.”
 
Also in action for Australia was Airleigh Frigo, who qualified for her first ever World Cup final, and recorded a personal best finish of 12th.
 
After three events Scott is ranked second on the World Cup standings with 182 points, trailing Canadian Marion Thenault in first place by 13 points. With her first-place finish, Peel has moved up to fifth on the rankings with 150 points.
 
The aerial skiing athletes will next be competing in the prestigious Deer Valley World Cup, site of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, on February 3.