Australian thumbs up for Winter Olympics venue

Australia’s freestyle skiers have given the prospective Winter Olympics venue at Phoenix Park a cautious thumps up.

Australian freestyle skier Lydia Lassila at Phoenix Park in PyeongChang. Picture: Getty Images

Australia’s contenders were locked out of the podium as China took a sweep of the women’s aerials at the Olympic test event in PyeongChang, South Korea, last night.

World No 1 Danielle Scott and reigning world champion Laura Peel won through to the six-woman final with the equal highest score of the previous round but could not reproduce that form with the medals on the line. Both missed their landings on triple-twisting double somersaults and they were relegated to fifth (Peel) and sixth (Scott).

Chinese veteran Xu Mengtao claimed victory on the prospective Olympic course, leading off the final with an excellent triple-twisting double somersault that scored 96.93 points and forced the rest of the contenders to chase her.

Shen Xiaoxue (72.26) and Yang Yu (70.72) took the minor placings.

Scott admitted she had struggled to find her equilibrium in PyeongChang after she was thrown off course by the wind in Deer Valley, Utah, in her last competition a week ago.

“It always throws your feel off a little bit and in particular because I didn’t get to do a jump straight after that,’’ she said.

“But you have to walk it off and every day is a new day.’’

She said the unpredictable conditions added to the challenge last night.

“The conditions are a little bit tricky and with the landing hill being a little bit flat, we both (she and Peel) got caught up in that,’’ she said. “I’m happy to be in the final. It has been tricky leading in with training and everything. Hopefully I can do a better job next time I’m here.

“It’s all good experience to see where everything is and see what the site’s going to be like and come out prepared.

“It is a bit of a windy spot here. We know how to work with it and we’re just going to have to be on our game when we come back.”

On the day that the International Olympic Committee invited the athletes of the world to assemble in PyeongChang next year for the Winter Olympics, Australia’s freestyle skiers generally gave their prospective venue at Phoenix Park the thumbs up on their first experience of the site.

The wind was also costly for 2010 Olympic gold medallist Lydia Lassila, who set off with an unhelpful tailwind in the qualifying round yesterday but had too much speed on take off which resulted in a missed landing and prevented her from progressing to the 12-woman semi-final. She finished 17th.

It was disappointing for Lassila, coming on the heels her first World Cup win after a three-year break, at Deer Valley in Utah last weekend.

However the 35-year-old aerialist, approaching her fifth Games, is too experienced to be worried by one mishap in the high-risk sport.

“Unfortunately I got unlucky today and got caught in a gust of tail wind which sent me way too big,’’ she said afterwards.

“The only jump I missed all week so it’s a real bummer. You win some, you lose some, I guess.’’