Jacqui Cooper presented with her Snow Australia Medal
Published Mon 05 May 2025
With the stars of the sport recognised on Thursday at the 2025 Snow Australia Awards, another legendary athlete collected their Snow Australia Medal.
The Snow Australia Medal was launched in June 2020 by Snow Australia to recognise the achievements and careers of those past and retiring athletes who represented Australia at the highest level of snow sport competition.
It is presented to all athletes who have finished on the podium at World Cup or World Championship level, and/or represented Australia at the Olympic or Paralympic Winter Games.
At the Snow Australia Awards, aerial skier Jacqui Cooper was presented with her Snow Australia Medal.
Cooper competed at her first Winter Olympic Games at Lillehammer in 1994, and in 2010 became the first Australian woman to be selected for five Olympic Games, summer or winter.
At World Cup level, Cooper competed in more than 130 events over between 1992 and 2010, making the podium on 40 occasions including 24 victories.
She won her first Crystal Globe in 1999 and went on to top the World Cup standings for the next two years as well.
She also went back-to-back in 2007 and 2008 to claim a fifth Women’s Aerials Crystal Globe, the second most all-time behind China’s Xu Mengtao with six.
Cooper’s 1999 season was a standout, winning three World Cups and finishing second in the only other event to win her first Crystal Globe, as well as claiming the World Championship in Meiringen-Hasliberg in Switzerland.
She would go on to stand on the World Championships podium twice more in her career, finishing third at Madonna di Campiglio, Italy in 2007 and at Inawashiro, Japan in 2009.
Cooper’s career came to a close at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver where she finished fifth, in the same event which saw Lydia Lassila win gold.
Attending the Snow Australia Awards with her children, Cooper said receiving the medal at a time when she could reflect back on her career made it all the more special.
“A beautiful award all these years on,” said Cooper. “When you're an athlete, you're sort of in that bubble, in that moment, and you don't really appreciate what you've done until much later.”
Click here to view Jacqui’s full profile on the Snow Australia Medal, including a video interview from when she was first announced as a recipient.
Cooper is one of 177 former athletes who are eligible to receive their Snow Australia Medal. Click here to see all their profiles.
