Cooper set to become record Olympian

AP ©

Jacqui Cooper will attempt to become the first woman to make five Australian Olympic teams after deciding to extend her aerial skiing career to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.

Cooper, 35, had been weighing her options since claiming a fifth World Cup series title earlier this year and says she'll press on for sheer love of the sport.

Cooper was a member of the Australian Olympic team for the Winter Games in Lillehammer (1994), Nagano (1998), Salt Lake City (2002) and Torino (2006).

Six other Australian women have gone to four Olympic Games - basketballer Sandra Brondello, diver Jenny Donnett, track and field athlete Lisa Ondieki, skier Zali Steggall and hockey players Rechelle Hawkes and Liane Tooth.

While she has enjoyed enormous success in her spectacular and high risk sport, Cooper's past Olympic experiences have been dogged by ill fortune, accident and injury.

As a relative newcomer, she placed 16th in 1994.

In Nagano, Cooper was one of the favourites after a string of World Cup medals but crashed out in the qualifying round, missing the final.

She went to the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics as the favourite but a training accident in the week before the competition put her out of the Games with a shattered knee.

And in Torino, Cooper set new record points score to win the qualifying competition, but missed her landing in the opening jump of the final, ending in eighth position.

But it is the love of jumping and a desire to be better that is fuelling her decision, not the need to stand on an Olympic podium.

"I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that I've committed myself to the next two years in aerial skiing," Cooper said.

"It's been a bit of a process that I've had to go through to think about everything, and the more I've thought about it, the more I know that I haven't finished my aerial career.

"Every single night when I go to bed I lie there and I think about how much more I can do as an athlete, and I haven't got close to being the best that I can be.

"I love jumping and I'm not ready to give that love away yet.

"I'm going to keep doing it until I find something else that I love more than aerials."

Cooper discussed her options with fiance Mario Volpe.

"Mario is so supportive of my decision," she said.

"We both figure that what you can do at 35 you should be able to do at 37, whether that's going off and doing something else in business or having a family.

All of those things can wait and Mario knows that jumping makes me happy. And if I'm happy, he's happy."