Glint of gold takes Lydia through the pain barrier.

The world's top female aerial skier has won the battle - physically and emotionally - against injury, writes Adrian Proszenko.

Well, before she retired from gymnastics, took up a career as an aerial skier, snapped her knee just one jump away from the gold medal round while the favorite at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics or had a dead man's achilles tendon grafted onto her knee, Lydia Lassila contemplated joining the circus.

''I retired from gymnastics in 1998 and didn't want to stop being an athlete. I just didn't know what sport I wanted to do,'' Lassila said.

''That was when Cirque du Soleil was starting up. At the time it was fairly new and I was, 'Ah, I don't want to be in the circus.'

''You look at it now - it's become a global empire, it's such a successful show, it's mind boggling what they are doing.

''That would have been a very good option in hindsight!''

Not that Lassila is complaining. More than a decade later, the Melbourne product is being paid to perform circus tricks, albeit not at the circus. After being the bridesmaid during the past four seasons, Lassila is now rated the world's best aerial skier and Australia's top hope for Winter Olympic gold in Vancouver next year.

It is a stunning rise for a girl who grew up loving the beach and had ambitions to become a kayaker, surfer, ironwoman, surf lifesaver … anything but an aerial skier. That is, until the day the Olympic Winter Institute decided to tap into the talents of former gymnasts.

''I'd never skied before and was one of those guinea pigs,'' she said.

The experiment paid off. The 27-year-old continues Australia's proud tradition of aerial champions by following in the footsteps of Kirstie Marshall, Jacqui Cooper and Alisa Camplin.

Lassila will stand on the ramp in Vancouver before attempting to pull off a ''double-full double-full'' - an audacious move consisting of three twists and three flips that has never been completed by a woman - with the expectation she will finish an Olympic meet on top of the podium. It won't be the first time. She was the white-hot favourite in Turin, but her reconstructed knee blew out with the prize almost within reach. The blood-curdling screams of pain reverberated around the stadium - and in her head - long afterwards.

''Before the last Olympics I had a pretty freak accident and ruptured my ACL,'' she recalled.

''That's not a good thing, especially when you are one of the favourites to win the event.

''I wanted to do well and it was a bit of a race against time to get back. So they decided to do an allograft procedure, where you get a donor's tendon and place that inside as an ACL instead of using your own tissue.
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