Alisa Camplin measures out her life in wooden spoons. The pint-sized Australian sticks the utensils into the snow to mark her launching point for aerial stunts she performs 50 feet in the air, perilous flights whose landings aren’t cushioned by hydraulics.
Like many aerial skiers, Camplin, 27, came to the sport by way of gymnastics. She didn’t start skiing until she was 19, and her first training jumps were made into a scummy pond filled with leeches.
Her comrade in the muck, Jacqui Cooper, was one of the event favorites going into the Olympics, but the three-time world champion blew out her knee in training three days after the Opening Ceremony. The unheralded Camplin flipped and twisted her way to first place Monday, thus doubling her country’s all-time Winter Olympics gold-medal count on the heels of short-track speedskater Steven Bradbury’s victory.
The 5-foot-2-inch, 106-pound Camplin, her shoulders draped with the Australian flag, gestured to the two Canadians who earlier had flanked her in the flower ceremony and declared the three of them “the dorkiest girls on the [World Cup] tour.”
“We never go out,” Camplin said of herself, silver medalist Veronica Brenner and third-place finisher Deidra Dionne. “People make fun of us. We stay in, we read books, two a week. It pays to be smart, and this is a very smart podium.
“I’m almost pleased that I didn’t have that pressure,” she said of Bradbury’s accomplishment. “That’s a big thing our nation has been trying to chase.”
Camplin was third going into the last jump Monday. She nailed a back full/double full–translated, a back twisting flip followed by another back flip with two twists–to take the lead. Both Canadians, who jumped before her, did tricks of equal difficulty.
Russian Olga Koroleva had the highest score off the first jump but chose to do an easier double twisting back flip and wound up fourth. Perhaps encouraged by the judge-bashing that has permeated the Salt Lake City Games, she complained that her scores were “lower than what I deserve.”
“Mostly I think the judging was biased in the qualification competition,” Koroleva said. “Today I blame myself, because I did make some errors.”
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No U.S. woman made the field of 12 finalists. Top U.S. hope Emily Cook, who crashed in training last month just after being named to the Olympic team, is recovering from foot surgery and watched the event from a wheelchair in the stands.
Switzerland’s Evelyne Leu, who set a world record in qualifying with her score of 203.16, landed too far forward on both of her jumps, somersaulting and losing a ski on the second try. Alla Tsuper of Belarus, second after the first jump, fell backward on her second landing and slid out of contention.
Landings account for 30 percent of a skier’s score, takeoffs 20 and overall form 50.
Camplin spoke to reporters while clutching a small toy sheep that has been her good-luck charm in Salt Lake City. Given the risks of her endeavor, superstition is forgivable. Camplin has had nine concussions and numerous broken bones. She jumped Monday just one month after bruising her ankles and incurring stress fractures in her heels.
She was unable to eat the night before the competition, she said, and slept only after downing a cup of chamomile tea and talking to her sports psychologist for an hour.
“This year my big improvement was in my mental skills, keeping my mind on the job at hand,” Camplin said.
For that reason she asked her family not to come to the Olympics, thinking it would be too distracting. Camplin was stunned to see her mother and sister after her winning score was posted, shrieking to get her attention. They foiled her by traveling from Melbourne and hiding behind an Australian flag in the crowd so she wouldn’t spot them.