LIVIGNO: Australia’s Danielle Scott shared a beautiful embrace through tears with her husband Clark Denning on “the best day of [her] life” as she finally lived up to her immense potential to win an Olympic Games silver medal in the women’s aerials on Thursday morning (AEDT).
However, her family and close friends had to be content with watching Nine’s broadcast back in Australia after she told them to cancel their flights to Italy due to a disappointing World Cup event in Canada six weeks ago.
“It’s, yeah, these last few years have had a lot of highs and lows, and with the season not going necessarily the best it could’ve, I was in a really difficult place and I told all my family and friends that they couldn’t come,” an emotional Scott told Australian media, including Wide World of Sports, after the medal presentation.
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“They’d booked their tickets and it was really heartbreaking to say that because I just was feeling the pressure and I just needed to focus on myself, so I’m grateful that Clark’s here, but he’s the only one that was allowed.
“So thank you to everyone at home for not coming.”
Scott, 35 and competing in her fourth Olympic Games, carried the hopes of a nation after the devastating ACL injury that forced the withdrawal of team leader Laura Peel.
She lived up to the expectation in emphatic fashion, delivering the highest score of the competition in the 12-woman final to go through as the top qualifier of six for the medal final. She was unable to repeat her incredible 117.9 – the highest score of her career – but despite an untidy landing, her final back-full-full-full was good enough for silver, scoring her a 102.17.
Even before her score flashed up on the screen, Scott was celebrating, with her sensational form in the air giving her an edge on the rest of the field, despite dropping her hands onto the snow to help her keep her balance.
Silver medallist Danielle Scott celebrates after the women’s aerials final in Livigno. Getty
Chinese superstar Xu Mengtao had already delivered a 112.90 with her final jump, executing the same triple as Scott but without the untidy landing. That score was always going to be difficult to trump without a near perfect landing but, despite earlier putting down the highest scoring jump in the day, Scott was elated with silver having pipped another Chinese athlete, Shao Qi, to the second step on the podium by 0.27.
To make her performance even sweeter, Scott did it on the 24th anniversary of chef de mission Alisa Camplin’s aerials gold medal in Salt Lake City. Standing with a strong contingent of Australian track suits, Camplin rode Scott’s performance as hard as anyone, bursting into tears when the result was sealed.
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“I can’t tell you how much pressure it is to be last in the start gate and to put that beautiful jump out there,” Camplin said afterwards.
“She well and truly, over 12 years, over 12 hours, over 12 months, she did everything possible to secure that performance and I couldn’t be more proud of her and the entire team behind her.”
Camplin has overseen the greatest performance by an Australian team ever at a Winter Olympic Games but admitted a medal in the aerials was extra special because of her connection with the discipline.
Danielle Scott is congratulated by Australia’s chef de mission Alisa Camplin-Warner. Getty
“I think though you really get to know the athletes, you go on the journey with them, you know, seeing Pyeongchang and Beijing and both Laura and Danni walking away really disappointed, seeing what Danni’s put in over this last four-year quad (the Olympic cycle), you know, dual Crystal Globes, working on her triples,” she said.
“Of all the girls doing triples there, she’s been doing them the least amount of time really. She’s been conservative and how many she’s done on snow, she’s played a really smart game.
“So it’s more that I’ve watched with admiration for the athletes, and I’ve loved that Danni’s done it her way.”
Scott said she had arrived in Italy unprepared to walk away with a sub-par performance having failed to make the super final at any of her past Games.
“Yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of pressure, and I thought I was prepared for these moments at, you know, the last two Olympics, but I walked away heartbroken and I just told myself I wasn’t prepared to walk away heartbroken again,” Scott said through tears.
“So I just put one foot in front of the other. That’s what I kept telling myself to not get ahead of anything and just to believe in my team, just one foot in front of the other.”
An elated Danielle Scott poses with her silver medal. Getty
It’s a mantra that worked superbly for her after a confidence-building Australian team camp in Switzerland in the lead-up to the Games.
It had been three years since Scott had last attempted a triple in competition – at the 2023 World Championships in Georgia – but she knew that to win a medal at Milano Cortina it was going to be required.
Five of the six athletes in the medal final attempted the exact same jump as Scott, with bronze medallist Shao needing to perfectly execute her back-lay-full-full to register a competitive score.
After the competition was on Tuesday postponed due to heavy snow fall, the weather gods came to the party the following day, delivering blue skies and perfect conditions for jumps with a high degree of difficulty.
Scott trusted in her training and pulled off a near perfect triple before backing it up to clinch silver.
“I think today’s been an awesome day and I’m just, I hadn’t completed triples [in recent competitions] until now, you know, it’s been a rough ride and I just kept believing,” she said.
“So I just, it’s all strategy as well, and you’ve got to play the game sometimes and my body has been through a lot, so I kind of left it to the right time and just believed that I’ve got the experience, I’ve done triples before and, today was the day.”