‘Superwoman’ Lassila schooling young rivals
WINTER OLYMPICS SHE likes to joke about her age but 35-year-old mother-oftwo Lydia Lassila is schooling much younger freestyle skiers in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
Lassila, heading to her fifth Games next month, has won gold in her second-last meet before the Winter Olympics.
Lassila, who missed the finals at her last event, won gold and Laura Peel bronze at the Aerial Skiing World Cup in Lake Placid, New York.
“Long day, you know it’s hard for me to make it through a day – I’m one year older this year,” she joked.
“You always want to be in the final, especially in the Super Final, so it’s important for me to do that and go through that process and have these long days so that I know in PyeongChang I’ve got that.
“I really took it one jump at a time, which is how I’ve kind of always tried to and I just felt really on ... I just felt really calm, confident, aggressive, assertive – all the right things that I needed to feel.”
Peel said she was delighted to be on the podium with her veteran teammate.
“I mean, Lyd’s like a superwoman so it’s always cool to be on the podium with her and Hanna (Huskova) from Belarus doing triples – it’s awesome seeing triples out there from the ladies,” she said.
I JUST FELT REALLY CALM, CONFIDENT, AGGRESSIVE, ASSERTIVE – ALL THE RIGHT THINGS THAT I NEEDED TO FEEL