Winter Olympics: Danger in every twist for aerial star Laura Peel

Former world aerial skiing champion Laura Peel has overcome a debilitating ankle injury to return to the Olympics.

Laura Peel jumps during freestyle aerials training at Phoenix Snow Park in PyeongChang. Picture: AAP

It’s only when things go badly wrong in snow sports that you realise just how dangerous they are.

Virtually every athlete competing this week at Bokwang, the freestyle skiing and snowboarding venue for the PyeongChang ­Winter Olympics, has survived a seriously scary, probably career-threatening, possibly life-changing crash on their way to the Games.

Former world aerial skiing champion Laura Peel’s big crash came about nine months before the last Games in Sochi, almost five years ago, and she is still ­feeling the after-effects as she ­prepares to make her play for an Olympic medal this week.

In a training camp at Ruka in Finland, Peel misjudged a twisting somersault and had not completed the trick when she met the landing hill.

“I had a quarter-twist and a quarter-flip to go,’’ she recalled.

Her right ski tip speared into the snow, stopping dead, but her body kept rotating. Something had to give and it was her ankle, which took all the force of her spin and was shredded by the time she fell to earth.

She had surgery to repair the joint and rushed back so she could make her Olympic debut in Sochi, where she finished seventh.

“It was a bit more quickly than was ideal because I still had some cartilage problems in there,’’ she said.

Nevertheless, Peel pressed on through the following year, when she put together one of her best pre-seasons on water and snow, which culminated in her winning her first world title in 2015.

However, Peel knew her ankle still wasn’t right and she had ­further surgery afterwards, taking 11 months to slowly rehabilitate the joint in the hope that she would be pain-free by the time she returned to her sport.

“I had stem cell injections to try and get some cartilage regrowth and I spent a good three months wondering if (aerial skiing) was still something I wanted to do,’’ she recalled.

“Beforehand I was pretty ­tightly strung and everything had to be perfect, but I came back with a new approach because I wanted to enjoy the journey.

“Now I have a bit more of a ­relaxed approach and that helps me to be more consistent.’’

Perfect is no longer an option for Peel. Water-ramp training is an aerial skier’s foundation. It is where they learn all new tricks ­before transferring them to snow because water is generally a more forgiving surface to land on when tricks go awry.

But not for Peel. The legacy of her ankle injury is that landing on water feels like she is landing on concrete.

“I have a lot more trouble on water because the landing is so flat and when you are landing on 150cm skis that’s a lot of impact — it just hurts,’’ she said.

Snow is easier because the landing hill is steep and so there is less impact through her injured ankle.

However, with her restricted time on the water ramp, Peel has been unable to move up to the quadruple-twisting double somersaults that her teammates, 2010 Olympic gold medallist Lydia ­Lassila and world silver medallist Danielle Scott, have prepared for this Olympics.

She won’t have as much ­ammunition to bring to the battle in PyeongChang, with triple-twisting double somersaults, but she proved they could still be ­competitive, when she returned to the podium at the last two World Cup events before the Games, at Lake Placid last month.

She finished third on both days as Lassila won the first competition and was second the next day.

Australia has won at least one aerial skiing medal at each of the past four Winter Olympics and Peel hopes she can help to extend the streak.

“The main goal for me is to get to the super final (top six),’’ she said.

“I just want to get there and put down the best jump I can. The jumps I am competing are well within my wheelhouse and if I do them right they will be competitive.’’

Australia’s highly credentialed aerial skiing team has now had two days of training on the competition site. The women will compete in the qualifying round on Thursday, with the medals to be decided on Friday night.