Mt Buller Celebrates Gold For Lydia! (26-Feb-10)

Mt Buller, Australia, Feb 26, 2010 - Cheers of support could be heard

Cheers of support could be heard in the mountains today as Mt Buller Ambassador Lydia Lassila secured the gold medal for Australia in the women's aerial skiing. The Mt Buller community gathered together to watch Lydia, along with Jacqui Cooper and Liz Gardner, take to the course at Cypress Mountain in their quest to secure another Olympic aerials medal for Australia, with Jacqui taking fifth place in her fourth Olympic games.

Mt Buller has long been the 'home' mountain for many Australian winter Olympic athletes. Lydia, Jacqui and 12th place getter Liz Gardner have a long and fond association with Mt Buller as the place they learned to ski and where they have honed their aerial techniques on the custom-built aerial jump site on Chamois run.

Last winter Mt Buller hosted the team for several weeks of vital pre-Games training ahead of these Winter Olympics. Laurie Blampied, General Manager of Buller Ski Lifts is delighted to see Mt Buller's enduring commitment to winter snow sports resulting in a gold medal for Australia and some great performances on the course from the whole team.

"The performances by our Australian team at these winter Games have been inspiring. Mt Buller has long been a supporter of these fine athletes and we are confident that these successes will help boost the profile of snow sports in this country. I hope young Australians seeing Lydia, Jacqui and Liz out there today might be inspired to follow a similar path and that we'll see more great Australian winter athletes in years to come."

"Many people may not realise Mt Buller has hosted 36 World Cup aerial events since 1997, more than anywhere in the world. In recent years however sponsorship and broadcasting interest has not been there to support these events. I am optimistic the renewed interest sparked by the Winter Olympics might see that start to change. We certainly have the athletes coming through in Australia and world class facilities to bring top level competition here again. We'd love to have these girls and the best skiers from around the world back jumping at Mt Buller."

Mt Buller is home to many of the winter Olympians including aerialists Jacqui Cooper, Lydia Lassila and Liz Gardner and was the training ground for Australia's first skiing gold medallist, Alisa Camplin.

In another interesting Mt Buller connection, the jump course itself is in the hands of Mansfield local Stuart Aldred. Aldred is the Chief of Course at Cypress Mountain overseeing the construction and challenging task of building and maintaining the aerial jump course in what have been trying weather conditions.