In the world of freestyle skiing, aerials is often seen as the ultimate individual discipline. One athlete, one ramp, three seconds of airtime to execute a series of flips and twists that defy both gravity and human intuition. But the introduction of the mixed team aerials event has added a new layer of complexity to the sport: strategy. And in Milano Cortina, no team played the strategic game better than the United States.
Team USA's gold in mixed team aerials was a victory not just of individual athletic brilliance, but of masterful coaching, calculated risk-taking, and a deep understanding of the unique psychological dynamics of a team event in a sport built for individuals.
The Event: How It Works
The mixed team aerials event features teams of three athletes, with at least one man and one woman per team. Each athlete jumps once per round, and their scores are combined to create a team total. The format is a pressure cooker: one mistake by one athlete can doom the entire team's chances. There is no margin for error.
The strategic element comes from two key factors: jump selection and athlete order. Each jump has a designated Degree of Difficulty (DD) score. A more difficult jump has a higher potential score, but also a higher risk of failure. A simpler jump is safer but has a lower scoring ceiling. The coaches must decide, round by round, which jumps their athletes will perform, balancing risk and reward.
The athlete order is equally critical. Do you lead with your most consistent jumper to build a solid foundation? Do you put them last to handle the pressure of the final jump? These are the questions that keep coaches up at night.
The Team: A Perfectly Constructed Trio
The U.S. coaching staff, led by head coach, built their gold-medal team with a specific philosophy in mind: balance. The trio of Ashley Caldwell, Chris Lillis, and Justin Schoenefeld was not necessarily the three highest-ranked individual American aerialists. Instead, they were the three whose skills best complemented each other for the team event format.
Ashley Caldwell: The Veteran Leader. Caldwell, a multi-time Olympian and one of the pioneers of women's triple-flipping tricks, was the team's anchor. Her role was to perform a high-DD jump — in this case, a full-full-full (three flips with three twists) — and post a big score. She was the team's offensive weapon.
Chris Lillis: The Powerhouse. Lillis is one of the strongest and most explosive jumpers in the world. His specialty is the quad-twisting triple flip, a jump with one of the highest DDs in the sport. His role was similar to Caldwell's: hunt for a huge score and put pressure on the other teams.
Justin Schoenefeld: The Technician. Schoenefeld is known for his consistency and his textbook-perfect form. His jumps may have a slightly lower DD than his teammates', but his execution scores are consistently among the highest in the world. His role was to be the rock — to land a clean, high-execution jump, no matter the situation. He was the team's closer.
The Strategy in Action: The Final Round
Team USA entered the four-team "Super Final" as the second-seeded team, behind the powerhouse Chinese squad. The American coaches knew that to beat China, they couldn't play it safe. They had to take a calculated risk.
The U.S. chose to jump first in the order of the three athletes. Lillis was up first. The coaches made a bold call: instead of his usual quad-twisting triple, they had him perform a slightly less difficult but more consistent triple-twisting triple. The goal was not to win the competition on the first jump, but to avoid losing it. Lillis nailed the jump, earning a high score and putting the pressure squarely on the other teams. The first part of the strategy had worked.
Next up was Caldwell. Her role was to execute her high-DD triple-triple. She stood at the top of the in-run, watching as the first jumpers from the other teams completed their attempts. The Chinese woman, her biggest rival, landed her jump but had a slight hand drag on the landing — a major deduction. This was the opening the U.S. needed.
Caldwell knew she didn't need a perfect jump; she needed a clean one. She performed her full-full-full with a focus that was palpable even on television. The landing was solid. The score was massive. The USA was in the lead.
"In the team event, you're not just jumping for yourself. You're jumping for the two people standing next to you. That changes everything. It's a different kind of pressure, but it's also a different kind of strength." — Ashley Caldwell
It all came down to Schoenefeld. He was the last jumper for Team USA, and he knew the situation: a clean jump would almost certainly secure the gold. The Chinese team's final jumper, a young athlete prone to inconsistency under pressure, had stumbled on his landing.
This is why the U.S. coaches chose Schoenefeld as the closer. They trusted his mechanics, his mental toughness, and his ability to block out the noise. He performed a double-full full — a jump he could do in his sleep — with a precision that was almost robotic. Clean takeoff, tight twists, a landing that stuck to the snow like Velcro. The score came in, and it was official: Team USA was golden.
The Science of Team Building
The mixed team aerials event is a fascinating case study in sports psychology. It forces a collection of individualists to think and act as a collective. The U.S. team's victory was a testament to a coaching philosophy that recognized this dynamic from the start.
They didn't just pick the three best jumpers. They picked the three jumpers who made the best team. They assigned roles, they developed a strategy, and they trusted their athletes to execute under the most intense pressure imaginable.
In a sport decided by three seconds of individual flight, Team USA proved that the most important part of the calculation might just be the conversations that happen on the ground. The strategy, as much as the acrobatics, is what won them gold.
