Laura Peel is back where she belongs, in the yellow bib with an extraordinary weekend of back to back gold medals in Lac-Beauport, Canada.
Following up her first gold for the season, with another gold 24 hours later, has put her at the top of the leaderboard.
In difficult conditions, four Australian women qualified for top 12 finals with Danielle Scott second, Peel fourth, Abbey Willcox tenth and Frigo 12th, the most of any nation in the women’s event.
In the first round of finals, Peel advanced to the super-final medal round in first place after scoring 94.65 points for her lay-full-full triple somersault jump. Joining Peel in her first super-final was 25-year-old Frigo from Brisbane in fifth after scoring 83.47 with a full-full double somersault. Unlucky to miss the super-final was Abbey Willcox in seventh on 80.95 and Danielle Scott, eighth on 80.50.
In the super-final, Peel increased her degree of difficult adding an extra twist in her triple, scoring 102.17 for her full-full-full jump to record her 11th career World Cup victory. American Karenna Elliott was a distant second on 87.42, and Frigo celebrated her first podium in third, scoring 76.85 for her lay-full double back somersault and smashing her previous best World Cup finish of 12th.
“I feel relieved. It’s been all kinds of weather and it’s hard to stay calm up there and trust yourself” said Peel, the 35-year-old double World Champion from Canberra.
“I had my plan from the beginning. I didn’t want to change it. I wanted to be able to execute those jumps in all conditions. The difficulty will ramp up going into the (Milan-Cortina 2026) Games, and I want to be ready.
“It’s been some really early mornings and long days. I’ll relax for a couple of days, get some good sleep, and get back to work.”
After three events, Peel has surged into first place on the World Cup standings on 210 points. Mengtao Xu of China follows in second on 184 and Elliott of the USA is third with 160 Australia also has two more athletes in the top-10, Scott in fifth place on 144 points and Frigo in tenth with 83 points.
The next World Cup event for the aerial skiing athletes is on February 7 in Deer Valley, USA, on the iconic “White Owl” 2002 Olympic Winter Games jump site, where Alisa Camplin made history by winning Australia’s first-ever skiing gold medal.
