Santa Barbara AHEPA Chapter 243

Lydia Lassila laid on the snow in Turin four years ago with her left knee shattered while her Olympic hopes faded away. She didn’t give up, although it would have been easy.

Four years later she won the gold medal in aerial skiing. Lassila took home the gold in the aerials, Australia’s second gold medal win, after snowboarder Torah Bright won gold in the half pipe, incidentally also at Cypress Mountain.

At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Lassila won gold in the aerials, getting Australia’s second gold medal for the games after snowboarder Torah Bright won gold in the half pipe, incidentally also at Cypress Mountain. This medal was also the second gold medal for an Australian in the aerials at all Winter Olympic Games, after Alisa Camplin in 2002. As world number one there was a lot of pressure and hype from the Australian press for Lydia to do well. She was in second position after the first jump of the final, before posting the highest scoring second round jump. The leader after the first jump, Xu Mengtao, had the last jump, but scored more than 25 points below Lassila’s second jump to fall down the rankings into sixth, due to a failed landing. Lassila had a combined score of 214.74, beating second placed Li Nina on 207.23 points. Australian team-mates Jacqui Cooper and Elizabeth Gardner finished 5th with 194.29 and 12th with 86.70 respectively

She ended the 2007/08 season ranked second on the World Cup standings, and then went on to win her first World Cup title in the following 2008/09 season.