Scott claims World Championship silver in Georgia
Published Fri 24 Feb 2023
Image: Miha Matavz/FIS
Article Courtesy OWIA
Aerial skier Danielle Scott has opened the medal tally for Australia at the 2023 FIS World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia, taking home the third World Championship medal of her career, after claiming a silver medal in tricky weather conditions.
Snowfall and strong winds forced the final to be postponed 24 hours, with conditions improving enough for the event to go ahead, but still giving athletes great difficulty, especially for those jumping the spectacular triple back somersaults.
After qualifying in first place for finals competition two days earlier, Scott stepped up her degree of difficulty in the first round of finals to perform a lay-full-full double twist triple back somersault, but with fresh snow making speed difficult, had trouble with her landing scoring 82.97 points to take the final spot in the six-woman medal round.
Scott elected to stick with triple somersaults for the final jump, performing a lay-tuck-full, a single twist triple somersault scoring 83.84 points, again marked down for her landing, putting her in second place behind event winner Fanyu Kong of China with 85.30 points. Rounding out the podium in third place with Ukrainian Anastasiya with 82.84.
Two-time World Champion Laura Peel was unlucky not to make the final round, missing out by one place in seventh after scoring 80.29 on her full-tuck-full triple somersault.
“It feels incredible, but it doesn’t quite feel real yet,” said the 32-year from NSW, who now trains in Brisbane at the Geoff Henke Olympic Winter Training Centre Water Jump facility.
“It’s been the craziest week, I didn’t actually think we’d be here, but here we are. I’m super happy and yeah, I’ve just got to let it sink in.
“We didn’t know what today was going to be like after cancelling yesterday, so you just have to stay in the game, but also not over think it, because that’s really easy to do.
“I committed to jumping triples, we went for a lay-tuck-full and it was really good, it was so close to taking the World Championship, but got to be happy.”
