The bizarre format and injury blow that have robbed Australia of a strong potential medal chance

LIVIGNO: A superstar's injury and a bizarre format will almost certainly stop Australia from adding to its Winter Olympics medal haul in the mixed team aerials despite Danielle Scott's heroics and the long line of outstanding aerial skiers in our heritage.

When looking at the remainder of the schedule at Milano Cortina, a casual winter sport fan would be forgiven for putting a red circle around the final aerials competition of the Games as Australia's best chance of adding more bling to what has already been our greatest Winter Olympics ever - with apologies to Indra Brown.

A deeper look, however, reveals that Australia has next to no chance of standing on the podium on Saturday night (AEDT) even if Scott equals or betters the astonishing personal best she set in the women's final of 117.9.

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While most mixed competitions - the curling and snowboard cross are winter sports examples - have an equal representation of women and men, mixed aerials teams are made up of three competitors. Each nation can either select two men and a woman or two women and a man.

This imbalance becomes more bizarre when you consider that male aerials competitors are routinely scored higher than females, due to physical advantages that allow them to get more height off the ramp and execute tricks with higher degrees of difficulty.

The scoring system in the mixed aerials does nothing to equalise this imbalance, adding the scores of all three athletes on a team together to reach a total, so if a team has two men and a woman they have an advantage over the teams with two women and a man before they even step onto the snow.

While Australia has a strong heritage in the aerials, with Scott's silver medal now boosting the nation's total to six medals - two gold, two silver and two bronze - in the last 24 years, only one of them has been won by a man.

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David Morris won a silver medal in Sochi in 2014 but there have been few Aussie men who have been genuinely competitive on the world stage since.

While the Milano Cortina 2026 women's field had four Australian entrants, led by Scott and complemented by fellow finalist Abbey Willcox, plus Sidney Stephens and Airleigh Frigo, the men's competition has only one Australian, Reilly Flanagan in the field.

"I think there's just not much exposure," 21-year-old Flanagan told Australian media, including Wide World of Sports, on Thursday, after being asked why there weren't as many Aussie men in the system as there are women.

"I think, we've had Dave Morris, very successful previous male aerial skier, but, I think there's not a lot of exposure back in Australia, like, when I was a gymnast, I didn't know this was an option, so I think that's kind of where it stems from."

Flanagan is a talented aerialist but having only switched to skis from gymnastics five years ago, he is inexperienced at the elite level and hasn't yet attempted a triple in competition. His highest score in competition has been an 82.53, while the scores to win medals in the men's aerials at Beijing 2022 were 127.88, 125.67, and 123.08.

To put that in further context, Scott was one of five women who executed a triple in the women's final on Wednesday and it was widely acknowledged that to compete for a gold medal a triple was a must. In the end her super final score of 102.17 was enough for the silver medal. In Beijing there were 19 men who scored higher than that.

A significant proportion of the men's field have a triple in their armoury and many of them will back up for the mixed competition the following day. There will be teams who enter the mixed competition with the prospect of scoring 300-plus as a trio. Even on their best day, Australia's ceiling with a team made up of Scott, Willcox and Flanagan will be no more than 280.

It could have been a different story had Laura Peel not been forced to withdraw with an ACL injury. Peel was considered Australia's top aerials medal contender, an even stronger chance of success than Scott. Peel won the Deer Valley World Cup meet in 2022 with one of the all-time highest scores for a female competitor - a whopping 118.05, which is just a fraction higher than Scott's new PB set on Wednesday.

Had Peel been injury free and jumping at her best alongside the in form Scott, Australia could have put out a team that would have been capable of a top score of close to 320 - putting a mixed team - even with a relatively low scoring male in Flanagan - in medal contention if the two superstar women had a day out.

Alas, that opportunity has been scuppered, even with a determined Scott shooting for the stars after winning her first Olympic medal as a 35-year-old.

"Yeah, I mean, the girls have done an amazing job yesterday, I literally just showcased how good and dominant we are in this sport, but yeah, first team event, that Australia's had a part in, so we're really excited to have a go at that," Scott said.

"Anything can happen in a team event, and we've got close to medals and we've got medals before, so yeah, I'm pretty excited and just, you know, bring out the best when we can.

"And we're very grateful to finally have Reilly, so you know we've been a very women dominant sport for a long time and hopefully we can get more men up and coming with us.

"So, it is tricky, but I think with myself doing triples, it means that we can put a big score on the board and, and Laura's shown that before too, so, between the three of us, anything can happen."