Alisa Wins World Cup In Historic Australian Quinella

Alisa Camplin has won the World Cup aerials title, leading an historic Australian one-two finish to the 2003 season in tandem with Olympic Winter Institute team-mate Lydia Ierodiaconou.

It is the first time that Australian athletes have occupied the top two spots in the world in any winter sport, and the first time there have been three skiers in the top ten.

In the course of the last two events of the season in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic, over the weekend, Lydia won her first World Cup event, and our OWI athletes were confirmed as the number one ranked team in the world.

Twenty-eight year old Alisa won the first World Cup event of her career as well as two others during the season, added a silver medal at Mt Buller and collected two bronze medals to score 580 points. She also set a new world record points score on her way to the 2003 World Championship crown. In the course of the past 13 months she has won every major event and title on offer.

Lydia has also had a brilliant season, in what was only the second year on the circuit for the 21 year old FIS Rookie of the Year for 2002. She broke through for her first World Cup victory in the first Spindleruv Mlyn event on Saturday, but also posted three other silver medal finishes during the season.

The third member of the team, Liz Gardner, produced a personal best fifth placing in Mt Buller and a women’s record score for the lay full during a season that saw her world ranking move from 32 up to 10.

Alisa finished in third place in both events over the weekend in Spindleruv Mlyn, but had amassed enough points during the season to add the World Cup crystal globe to her Salt Lake gold medal and world championship crown.

Lydia won the first event on day 1, then crashed in the final event on day 2 for 18th place, ending the season equal on points with former world champion Veronika Bauer, but taking second place ahead of the Canadian on a countback.

Liz Gardner missed the final event through heel injuries, but maintained enough points to finish the season in tenth place.

Lydia Ierodiaconou set a personal best total points score and a pb Double Full Full score on her way to her first career victory.

She was second behind Veronika Bauer after the first jump, the Canadian posting 97.09 to Lydia’s 96.20, with Swiss skier Evelyne Leu in third place and Alisa in fourth on 92.83.

Liz Gardner, jumping with bruised heels after a training accident, was in 14th place and out of the 12-woman final.

In the final, Lydia exceeded her previous best score for the double Full Full by nearly three points to take the lead on the second last jump of the day, and then watched as Bauer could only manage 75.08 points on her final jump, only the eighth highest of the round.

It made Lydia the fourth Australian woman to win a World Cup ski or snowboard event, and the fifth Australian skier to do so.

The victory came in just her 15th World Cup event, and her second season on the circuit.

Alisa went into the second Spindleruv Mlyn event, the last for the season, knowing she would win the World Cup title if she finished on the podium, but after the first jump, she was in fifth place, with Nina Li of China leading.

Although Alisa was not where she would have liked to be, the main threat for the title wasn’t Li, it was Veronika Bauer, and she was three places and nearly four points behind the Australian.

Lydia, unfortunately, was at the rear of the field after crashing very heavily on her first jump.

Evelyne Leu set the pace in the second round of jumping, coming from tenth place to take the lead with a massive 106.40 double twisting triple somersault.

Bauer’s second jump was little better than her first and, once again, Alisa came through in the clutch, landing a 96.02 full double full to move ahead of the Canadian into third place behind Leu and Belarussian Assol Slivets.

It was enough to take the title. With three of the remaining four women doing jumps that couldn’t score highly enough to beat her, only Li could post a better score, and a guaranteed fourth behind the Chinese skier was enough.

In the end, Li jumped badly, slipping to seventh, and Alisa took her second bronze medal for the weekend – and Australia’s fifth World Cup aerials title.

Alisa is the third Australian woman to claim the World Cup title. Kirstie Marshall became the first to take the title in 1992, and Jacqui Cooper captured it three seasons in a row from 1999 to 2001.

SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

Team
- First place in the women's aerials Nations' Cup standings
- Three athletes ranked in the top ten in the world
- Ten World Cup medals for the season, including four wins
- Only the second time in women’s aerial skiing history that two athletes from the same country have been ranked one and two

Alisa Camplin
- World Championship gold medal in Deer Valley, USA
- World Cup title
- Six World Cup medals, including three wins
- World Record score of 207.31

Lydia Ierodiaconou
- Four World Cup medals, including her first World Cup win
- Personal best score of 192.58
- Second place on the World Cup standings, in only her second year of competition
- Best second year season by an Australian winter sports athlete, narrowly ahead of Kirstie Marshall who finished the 1989/1990 season ranked third on the standings with five World Cup medals including one World Cup win

Liz Gardner
- Personal best finish of fifth place at the Mt Buller #1 and Lake Placid #2 World Cup events
- Personal best score of 171.44 at the World Championships in Deer Valley, USA
- World ranking in the top ten
- World record women's score for lay-full

Place	Surname	Name	Nation	Mt Buller	Mt Buller	Tremblant	Lake Placid	Lake Placid	Fernie	Steamboat	Spindleruv	Spindleruv	Total
1	Camplin	Alisa	AUS	(60)	96	100	100	(48)	(48)	100	92	92	580
2	Ierodiaconou	Lydia	AUS	96	(72)	96	(20)	80	88	96	100	(32)	556
3	Bauer	Veronika	CAN	100	100	-	(32)	(52)	100	92	84	80	556
4	Li	Nina	CHN	(56)	84	-	96	96	92	88	96	(76)	552
5	Zukal	Anna	RUS	92	88	76	(64)	76	(72)	84	(68)	84	500
6	Xu	Nannan	CHN	80	92	-	88	100	(32)	64	(36)	68	492
7	Brenner	Veronica	CAN	(64)	80	84	84	72	(28)	80	(32)	88	488
8	Dionne	Deidra	CAN	72	56	88	76	88	(52)	(16)	80	(36)	460
9	Reed	Kate	USA	(24)	(44)	92	(48)	68	80	56	76	72	444
10	Gardner	Elizabeth	AUS	84	68	(36)	(56)	84	76	72	(48)	-	440

The OWI would like to specifically thank all of the different elements of the aerial skiing program who have made the record breaking success during this season possible.

Principal & Partner
Australian Olympic Committee
Australian Institute of Sport

Aerial Team Sponsors             Program Partners                       Suppliers
Qantas                                      Victorian Institute of Sport           Karbon race & outerwear
Mt Buller                                    Ski & Snowboard Australia Limited                Woolmark team apparel
                                                                                                      Dartfish video analysis

Very special congratulations to all the athletes and staff of the aerial skiing program during the past season:

Athletes                                   Staff                              Additional thanks to
Alisa Camplin                            Todd Ossian                    Dr Peter Braun
Lydia Ierodiaconou                   Rachel Johnson                 Randall Cooper
Liz Gardner                               Dustin Wilson                   Bianca Matheson
Bree Munro                               Peter Hogg                     Mark Carlton
Other                                      Helmut Spiegl
Jacqui Cooper (injured reserve)
Lainie Cole (inactive)