Dale Begg-Smith has captured the dual mogul skiing title at the World Freestyle Championships, leading a medal feast by Australia's winter sports athletes.

Skiing alongside him in the northern Italian resort of Madonna di Campiglio, Jacqui Cooper won World Championship bronze in aerial skiing, eight years after winning the world title in 1999.

And across the Atlantic in Lake Placid, New York, Holly Crawford also collected bronze in snowboard halfpipe, her fifth medal of the season, to keep her World Cup title hopes alive.

Following up on his World Championship silver medal in single moguls, Begg-Smith qualified first in the dual format event in Madonna, then demolished his opponents in the head-to head final rounds.

He defeated Finnish skier Tapio Luusua 35 points to zero in the round of 16, Sho Kashima of the USA 28 points to seven in the quarter finals, Ruslan Sharifullin of Russia 29 to six in the semi-final then ended a brilliant day with a 33 to two final victory over world number two Guilbaut Colas of France.

The victory gave the 22-year-old Torino gold medallist a season scoreline of seven victories and nine podiums from 12 events, a remarkable record.

"Dual moguls wasn't necessarily Dale's strength coming into the year, but he's so smart he's able to figure out ways to learn things and apply them and he skied very well today," said Olympic Winter Institute Head Moguls Coach Steve Desovich.

"Dual moguls is all about speed, and although Dale isn't always the fastest down the course in single moguls, he can step it up and put the pressure on his opponents when he needs to."

"It's been a remarkably consistent year - nine podiums from 12 events is a tremendous performance."

In the aerial skiing World Championship event, Jacqui Cooper was a casualty of the strong and gusty winds that buffeted the course.

Cooper led after the opening round of jumping, scoring 110.76 points with her triple twisting triple somersault to be seven points clear of the field.

But in the second jump a sudden gust caught the 34-year-old veteran halfway down the in-run, robbing her of the speed she needed to complete her double twisting triple jump.

She received 71.82 points from the judges for a total of 182.58 points, enough for a podium place but not for the gold, which went to defending champion Nina Li of China.

Li scored 188.05 points, the lowest World Championship-winning score since 1995, while Belarussian Assoli Slivets took the silver on 186.55 points.

Olympic Winter Institute team member Liz Gardner placed tenth on 153.40 points.

And in Lake Placid, New York, Holly Crawford won the bronze medal in the second last event of the season, slipping behind Swiss rival Manuela Laura Pesko at the head of the World Cup standings, but still in a strong position to take the title.

Torino silver medallist Gretchen Bleiler won the gold with 46.7 points, Pesko taking silver on 43.4 points.

Crawford pulled herself up to third position with a 39.8 points second run after falling in her first trip down the pipe.

She now sits in second place on the World Cup standings with 4250 points, 150 behind Pesko, and needs to defeat her next weekend to claim what would be Australia's third winter sports title of the year.

Andrew Burton finished in seventh place on 39.1 points in the men's event, his third top ten result of the season.

American Steven Fisher collected the gold with 47.5 points.

"It was fairly interesting day," Crawford said. "I was beaten and bashed by the pipe all through training and then in the first run, so it was nice to make it through the second run without completely knocking myself out."

"I'm looking forward to the final event next weekend. It's one of the bigger pipes so that should be good for me."

"In Calgary I was just 0.1 of a second behind Manuela, so I just have to get a good clean run and it should be alright."

The final event will take place in Stoneham, Canada, on Monday morning, March 19, Australian Eastern Summer time.

Courtesy OWI/Sportcom
 

© FIS / Mike Ridewood