Peel soars to World Cup aerials crown at Olympic venue

Freestyle skiing ace Laura Peel has soared to win the overall World Cup aerials crown at the Italian venue where she intends to fly to gold for Australia in next year's Winter Olympics.

In the final World Cup event of the season on the 2026 Olympic course in Livigno, Peel struck gold with a stunning performance on Thursday.

The evergreen 35-year-old winter sports star claimed her fifth victory of the season - and the 14th of her career - while sealing a third FIS crystal globe as the season's champ in the aerials, following her triumphs in 2020 and 2021.

Her trusty teammate Danielle Scott also ended up on the podium with the bronze for her season's work.

"I am so stoked, honestly I couldn't be happier, it's globe number three, I don't think it gets any easier," said Canberran Peel, whose performance bodes well for a serious assault on the Olympic crown next year at the venue some 200km from the Games centre in Milan.

"That's day four on this site now. I've got to say I really like it. It's been working well for me, I've been jumping well. That's a relief and I'm so excited to come back here for the Olympics."

Peel only needed to finish 12th or better to secure the title on Thursday, but she went out and won it in style.

Qualifying for the 12-woman final in second place, the globe was already wrapped up safely, so she could afford to display the full array of her talents.

She performed a lay-full-full double twisting triple back somersault in the first round of the finals to advance to the top-six super-final in second place on 91.83 points.

Then she upped the degree of difficulty, scoring 112.90 points for a full-full-full triple-twisting triple back somersault, one of her best jumps of the season.

Second place went to China's Mengtao Xu (105.17), Peel's nearest pursuer in the overall standings, and her teammate Meiting Chen was third on 91.44.

Peel finished the season on 542 points, 98 clear of Xu (444), while Scott was third on 368, the sixth time the 35-year-old placed in the podium in the final-season standings.

Other Australians, Abbey Willcox (5th) and Airleigh Frigo (10th) enjoyed the best season's rankings of their careers.

There's a chance for Peel to end the season even more gloriously when she goes for gold in the world championships in St Moritz, Switzerland, at the end of the month.

Aiming for her third world gold, Peel said: "Pretty much keep the same plan. What I have been doing I just want to repeat the same at the world champs.

"It's a long season, everyone is getting a bit tired, but we are super excited to head to St Moritz and it's the peak of our season."

The country's women aerial skiers have now won 14 crystal globes over the past 33 years in what has become a stellar event for Australia, with Peel's three victories second only to Jacqui Cooper's five.