Our champion Lydia Lassila has won a bronze medal in the final of the freestyle skiing ladies' aerials at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
Nerves of steel ... Bronze medalist Lydia Lassila of Australia
celebrates after
the flower ceremony for the freestyle skiing ladies' aerials finals.
Photo: Getty Images
the flower ceremony for the freestyle skiing ladies' aerials finals.
Photo: Getty Images
Lydia attempted the most difficult aerial ever attempted by a woman at the Olympics - a quad-twisting triple sumersault. It was an amazing feat but unfortunately she landed hard and could not stay on her skis, but did enough to take third place with a score of 72.12.
There was concern that Lassila would not be able to compete in the
sudden-death rounds after crashing in a training run, but she composed
herself and committed to jump with a level of difficultly that would
have taken gold had she landed smoothly.
She was very pleased with herself. "That was the maximum effort for me today and I could not have performed better," Lydia told Channel 10.
The bronze was Australia's second medal of the Sochi Games, following Torah Bright's silver in the snowboard halfpipe.
We, at Diggers Talk, congratulate Lydia and her family and are glad that she is safe.
Article extract from The Age, Sochi Winter Olympics: Defending Olympic champion Lydia Lassila takes bronze in the ladies’ aerials final, 15 February 2014
