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| Lydia Lassila celebrates on the Podium at the Flower Presentation Ceremony immediately following her event. |
Lydia Lassila won her Gold Medal for the Womens Aerials in the Freestyle Skiing.
This is one of the newer Sports that have started to come into the Winter Olympics, even though it’s been there for a while now. For the traditionalists who think that some of these new events are not like those Sports we associate with Winter Games, consider this for a minute.
Lydia, as well as the other 11 finalists have to complete two successful jumps.
She launches herself down a steep slope. At the end of that slope is a steep ramp going up, and at the top of that ramp, it is almost vertical. Her speed at the bottom of the slope as she starts to go up the ramp is in the vicinity of 40 to 45 MPH, after only a 100 yard run down the steep slope. Then she launches herself into the air off that ramp. Whilst in the air, she has to complete three full reverse somersaults. During each somersault, she also has to do a complete twisting rotation of her body. All this has to be accomplished while keeping her body straight, her arms by her side and spread straight out in a sequence as she spins and somersaults. That’s three full reverse somersaults, and three full twists. She then has to time the landing so perfectly that her skis are facing directly down the slope, absorb the compression and have her arms out in front of her without placing them or any other part of her body onto the snow, and then ski out to the bottom of the slope without falling. She is marked for style of the aerial performance and also for the landing. Her score is then multiplied by the degree of difficulty, so the harder jumps have a higher degree of difficulty.
If you think that sounds relatively difficult, then further consider this. After launching from the steeply sloped ramp, she reaches a height well above the tip of that ramp. From the apex of that height and then back to where she lands on the steep slope after the jump, the distance is the same as the height of a four storey building, and during the landing she has to absorb four times her own body weight in compression.
Lydia was one of 12 girls who made the final. There were also two other Australians, Jackie Cooper, and Elizabeth Gardner.
Lydia came to this event as the reigning World Champion in the event, and has won numerous World Cup events in this discipline. She successfully completed her first jump, and was in second place at the start of the second jump, meaning she was the second last girl to jump. She absolutely ’stomped’ the jump in the terminology of the event, and her combined score for the two jumps now placed her easily as the highest scorer. The final jumper did not land her jump, and Lydia now had the Gold Medal.
Lydia has come back from two complete knee reconstructions and numerous other injuries, as you might imagine, leaping as it is from a four storey building onto a semi hard surface.
You have to feel for Jackie Cooper, one of the other Australian finalists. This was her fifth Winter Olympics, and now aged 37, after a life of injury, she laid it all on the line for her very last Olympic jump, a jump she had not even heard of, or even thought possible when she started competing at Olympic level. She also nailed that jump, and that put her in first place until those jumping after her also completed their jumps. She ended up in fifth place, a wonderful finish to a sterling career for her Country. The youngest competitor in this final was not even born when Jackie competed at her first Olympic Games.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Australia has virtually no facilities for Winter Sports, and nearly every athlete has to compete overseas where those facilities do exist. Here in Australia, we do have some snow resorts, but there is only snow at those resorts for three or months each year, and while there are some facilities, for year round competition, Australian athlete’s just have to follow the Winter circuit where those facilities do exist.
So when it comes to the Winter Olympic Games, Australia is one of the absolute minnows. We have however now produced 5 Gold Medallists over the last three Games, and to that we have added one Silver Medal and three Bronze Medals. These Games in Vancouver have been our most successful with two Gold Medals and one Silver Medal.
Lydia Lassila is an Australian who is now in very select company.
Filed under: Australia Tagged: 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, Lydia Lassila, Winter Olympic Games 
