Australia has its sixth medal at this year’s Winter Olympic Games after Danielle Scott won silver in the aerials, becoming the first Australian to medal in the event since Lydia Lassila bronze in 2014.
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It came after a difficult decision which saw the Australian tell her family and close friends to cancel their flights to Italy and instead watch the event from home.
That decision was prompted by a disappointing string of results on the World Cup circuit, where Scott opened the 2025-26 season with finishes of 13th, sixth, 18th and 20th.
She had dreamed of winning an Olympic medal and fallen short in her last few attempts. This time was going to be different, but the pressure was too much and in the end, she decided she just wanted to focus on herself.
“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,” Scott told Australian media, including Code Sports, in Livigno after the medal presentation.
Instead, only her husband Clark Denning was allowed to attend.
“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,” she added.
“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.”
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Scott was the last to jump in the final after qualifying with a career-high score of 117 points and pulled off a back Full-Full-Full in the one-jump final.
While her execution wasn’t quite good enough to knock off defending Chinese champion Xu Mengtao, it scored Scott the medal she had dreamed about for so long as her score of 102.17 points saw her finish ahead of Chinese pair Shao Qi (101.90) and Kong Fanyu (101.31) in second.
Scott had previously made the aerials final at Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing, but fell short of the medals on all three occasions.
“To finally have this around my neck, I mean it’s taken four Olympics and it’s been an incredible ride of frustration, a lot of highs, a lot of lows, but today just honestly I just put my heart out there,” she said.
“I left everything out there, I jumped the way I wanted to, and I’m so grateful for my team around me to get me to that point, so this just means everything.”
While Scott was left disappointed by her performances on the World Cup circuit, she entered the Olympics with momentum after finishing the Olympic qualification window with back-to-back podium places at the aerials World Cup in Lake Placid.
Scott was just one of several Australians in action on day 12 of the Games, with Abbey Wilcox finishing 10th in the aerials final while Airleigh Frigo and Sidney Stephens missed out on qualification for the final.
In the snowboarding, Ally Hickman took a terrifying fall during the second of her three runs in the women’s snowboard slopestyle final.
The teenager was able to get up and walk away under her own power, going on to actually complete her third and final run only to fall again while trying to land her jump.
It was an incredible effort nonetheless and one that saw her place seventh in the final, with the Australian Olympic Commission later confirming in an update that Hickman had been diagnosed with a bruised sternum.
“She has had x-rays to exclude a fracture of her sternum and ultrasound to exclude other abdominal and chest injuries,” the statement added.
Elsewhere, Madison Hoffman finished 23rd in the alpine skiing while Phoebe Haydon did not finish.
In the cross-country skiing, Lars Young Vik and Hugo Hinkfuss crossed the finish line in 14th, while Rosie Fordham and Phoebe Cridland missed the final.
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