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To appreciate aerial skier Laura Peel’s relationship with yoga, it pays to understand the extreme nature of her sport.
Peel’s good friend and Winter Olympics gold medallist Lydia Lassila has a unique way of putting it into perspective.
Imagine being an Olympic swimmer, she says, with all of its physical and mental demands, and then throwing a crocodile in the pool.
Now you are getting close.
Laura Peel wins a world cup event in Livigno, Italy in March this year. Credit: Getty Images
“You have got that fight or flight instinct going on for a number of months,” Lassila explains of a Winter Olympics campaign.
“So, your levels of cortisol [stress hormone] are high. You kind of feel, not anxious, but you have always got a certain level of nervousness.”
Add in the demands of a gruelling competition and the thrill of performing, and it’s a heady mix. One that the summer Olympians might never understand.
“I think it’s different to the likes of a swimmer,” Lassila says. “They are not diving in and thinking, ‘Shit, I might really hurt myself’. Unless they are swimming from a crocodile, then they’ll have some sense of what it is like being an extreme athlete.”
Peel has been an extreme athlete at the highest level since 2009. The former gymnast is now 36 and a veteran of the Australian team heading into the 2026 Olympics.
Laura Peel has taken aerial skiing to new heights in recent years. Credit: FIS
But her ability to deal consistently with the mental and physical pressures can be traced back to 2015 when she found herself in a rut, a low point that led her to yoga.
She had come out of ankle surgery, wasn’t training, was living at home in Canberra and became frustrated at “getting in my own way”.
“You know, I think I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself,” Peel explains. “I had some back-to-back injuries, we’d had a lot of... coaching instability in our program, and I didn’t feel like I was doing my best. And I didn’t feel like I was at my best.
“I went to yoga for something physical, but I think there was just, like, little titbits of things that I picked up, and it really helped me to look at the positive side of things and see opportunities rather than obstacles.
“And then after that year [2015], when I went back to training, I went back a lot more positive. I felt like I went back a different athlete. I was just happier and healthier. When things went wrong, it wasn’t the end of the world.”
Peel is in Melbourne with the Australian team, taking part in a series of pre-Games interviews.
Peel launches herself skyward in St Moritz, Switzerland.Credit: Getty Images
She is wearing ankle-cut blue denim jeans, a white woollen long sleeve, half-zip jumper and a statement collar, and Doc Martens pull-on boots. Her black hair is in a half-up messy bun.
Currently studying a Masters of Professional Accounting, her answers are considered and assured.
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“I feel good,” she says. “Not everybody’s body or mind allows them to keep going for as long as they would like. I feel lucky to be able to so far dictate that I’m still going.”
Peel has competed at the past three Winter Olympics, including as flag bearer at Beijing in 2022 where she finished fifth. She is also a two-time World Champion.
But one medal has continued to elude her grasp - Olympic gold.
All that could be about to change, according to Lassila, who won gold in the event at Vancouver in 2010 following Alisa Camplin’s breakthrough victory at Salt Lake City in 2002.
Gold medallist aerial freestyle skier Lydia Lassila.Credit: Getty Images
“She’s doing everything she needs to do,” Lassila says. “She had a break the year before last – she felt she needed it – and came black refreshed, revived, and jumping better than ever.
“She knows what she’s doing. She’s right in the box seat to win an Olympic gold medal. That’s the reality of it.”
Lassila and Peel first when they roomed together at snow camp at the end of 2009 in Ruka, Finland. Peel was 20 at the time.
“Laura was just getting going with her career. I think she was doing single flips,” Lassila recalls of her rookie teammate.
“I think I was very focused on what I was doing at the time, but knowing that they were always watching and learning.”
Fast forward 15 years and Peel is no longer a novice. She is the sport’s No.1 ranked athlete – the third time she has won the World Cup Crystal Globe for topping the rankings – and is regularly landing triple somersaults.
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It is this ability, Lassila says, that has seen Peel take the sport to unprecedented heights.
“I mean [China’s] Xu Mengtao has been a very dominant force,” Lassila says.
“She won the last Olympics and I would have said at the last Olympics she’s the best ever, in terms of how many career medals she has won, how long she has been doing the sport, you know, how many world championships, the level of her jumping, the level of how she has progressed the sport.
“And Laura, at the moment, the quality of her jumping is even better.”
Peel became the first aerial skier to land a triple-back somersault in international competition in 2019 and has continued to push the boundaries with her high-risk, high-reward manoeuvres.
But even Peel understands time is running out as she prepares to compete in Livigno for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Still, she is heading towards the Games in fine form, having won a world cup event in Lac-Beauport, Canada on January 8.
“I think there are bonuses to being a young athlete,” she says. “You know, now that I’m a little bit older, I can’t do as many jumps as I used to do and things like that, but I’m really grateful for the experience that I have, and, you know, that kind of wisdom that I’ve developed over the years.
“I’ve been doing it a long time … and there are other things in life, too. I don’t know where the wind will blow me exactly. But I can’t do it forever, unfortunately.”
So if these are her last games, just how high does she set her expectations?
“I want to get to Livigno happy and healthy, and I want to do my best jumps on the day, and my best jumps are some of the best,” she says. “And it would be really nice to finish with an Olympic gold medal.”
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So does Lassila have any final words of advice for her friend of the past 16 years?
“She has the physical aptitude, she has the mental capabilities to get it done because she’s performed in high-pressure stakes before,” Lassila says.
“If I had any advice, I would tell her immediate team - her coach, her support staff – that it’s all about preserving confidence all the way from start to finish.
“Just reassuring her that she is exactly where she should be, she is exactly where she deserves to be and all she has to do is do her jumping. And not worry about anything else.”
No worries in an extreme sport? That’s where the yoga comes in.
The Winter Olympic Games will be broadcast on the 9Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
