Yet another aerial skiing world championship for Australia as Laura Peel wins

AUSTRALIAN women have dominated this sport for the last 20 years, and our newest world champ is Laura Peel. Laura who?

KREISCHBERG, AUSTRIA - JANUARY 15: Laura Peel of Australia celebrates victory during the medal ceremony for the Women's Aerials Final of the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championship 2015 on January 15, 2015 in Kreischberg, Austria. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

HERE’S a challenge for you. Name a sport in which Australia dominates the world.

Not a sport where we’re always near the top, like cricket, or a sport where we always have one or two world class players, like golf, but a sport which we absolutely dominate, year after year.

Surfing wouldn’t be a bad guess. But we’re thinking of a sport where the water is a little colder than your average surf break — as in frozen.

We’re talking about aerial skiing, and Australian Laura Peel overnight became the fourth Aussie world champ in said sport after a nail-bitingly narrow win at the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships in Kreischberg, Austria.

Yes, our fourth world champion, which is more female world champions than any other country has provided. While the Chinese have won more actual titles, we’ve had four individual winners, while they’ve had just three (due to some multiple winners).

Laura Laura, you’ll adore ‘er (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

And let’s not forget our six Winter Olympic medals in aerial skiing too (three of them gold).

The Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships are held every two years, on the odd-numbered years between the Olympics. They’re easily the biggest non-Olympic event.

Laura Peel performed well in Sochi but failed to make the final, in which teammate Lydia Lassila won bronze.

Almost a year on from those Games, Peel unleashed a triple twisting double somersault in the six-woman super-final, landed it beautifully, and picked up 88.47 points from the judges. The remaining competitors had higher-scoring jumps with less than perfect landings, and that was that. Just.

She was the brightest star in the sky. AFP PHOTO / MICHAL CIZEK

Peel joins Jacqui Cooper, Kirstie Marshall and Alisa Camplin as Aussie aerial skiing world champs. Indeed, it was Cooper who introduced the 25-year-old Canberran to the sport at a recruitment camp back in 2007. Peel had been a gymnast and a recreational skier, both of which helped her case.

But it was her attitude that really impressed Cooper. That and the fact Peel is tall for an aerialist, at 175cm, just like Cooper. Peel even borrowed Cooper’s gear in the early days.

The ongoing success of Australia’s aerial skiing squad is all the more impressive given the primitive training facilities in Australia. The squad uses a water jump near Lilydale on Melbourne’s outskirts. It’s like jumping into a filthy brown farm dam. In fact, it pretty much is jumping into a filthy brown farm dam.

See what we mean? Picture by Steve Tanner.

Plans for a state-of-the-art training facility in Queensland were scuttled by the Newman government in 2013 just as the ramps were about to be built. Meanwhile, Summer Olympic sports which net far fewer medals for Australia continue to be better funded with far superior facilities.

In other world championships news, Australia’s Opening Ceremony flag-bearer from the Sochi Olympics, Alex “Chumpy” Pullin, qualified first in his snowboard cross event, and will race for gold in the early hours of Saturday morning, Australian time.