Jacqui Cooper (born 6 January 1973 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian freestyle skier and motivational speaker.
Cooper has been participating in aerial skiing since she was 16, and has been in the Australian team for 13 years. She has had many injuries, including a shattered knee and a broken back.
She competed at the 1994 Winter Olympics and came 16th. Cooper participated in the 1998 Winter Olympics. A crash in the qualifying round left her unable to compete.
At the Salt Lake Winter Games in 2002, she was the favourite to win gold, being the three time world cup champion. Unfortunately, a training accident in the week before the games left her knee shattered. Teammate Alisa Camplin went on to win gold for Australia.
Cooper made her comeback at the 2004 Mount Buller World Aerials, two and a half years after her Salt Lake accident. She won the silver behind fellow Australian, Lydia Lassila (née Ierodiaconou). After having a long time off competition, she performed double somersaults, rather than her trademark triples.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Cooper entered the final as the favourite to win, having recorded a world record 213.56 in the qualification, however crash landings on both her jumps ended her chances.
Despite never winning an Olympic medal, Cooper arguably became the most successful women's aerial skier of all time after winning her fourth World Cup title in Apex, Canada.
Cooper was selected for the 2010 Winter Olympics, making her the first Australian woman to be on five Olympic teams, summer or winter. Jacqui finished 5th in the 2010 Olympic competition. Fellow Australian Lydia Lassila won the gold medal.
Famous quotes containing the word cooper:
“The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue, and, in this way, is scarcely less injurious to the public. The first deals in poetry, the last in cant. He is as much a visionary on one side, as the extreme theoretical democrat is a visionary on the other.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)