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Australia has enjoyed its most successful ever Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships as Tess Coady claimed Australia's sixth medal in Bakuriani, Georgia.
- Tess Coady won her second career world championship medal in the big air event
- Her bronze medal was Australia's sixth total medal at this year's freestyle ski and snowboard world championships
- It is the first time since 2009 that Australia has not won a gold medal at the event
Coady, who won a bronze in slopestyle at last year's Winter Olympics in Beijing and at the 2021 world championships in Aspen, finished third in the big air event in Georgia.
It was Australia's second bronze medal of the competition which, with the four silver medals won earlier in the competition, makes it Australia's largest medal haul at a single world championships.
"The performance of the Australian team has been insane," Coady told the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia.
"You see your fellow Aussies doing well and it lifts you and you want to carry that momentum."
Coady, who made the final in Beijing at the striking Shougang Big-Air complex last year, started the competition in Georgia strongly with a backside-1080-indi grab.
The 22-year-old then landed a clean frontside-900-tail grab jump in run two, scoring 68.50 points.
In big air competitions, each rider has three opportunities to complete a single jump, with the best two scores combined to get a total score.
With the medal positions still up for grabs, Coady attempted a frontside-1080-tail grab on her final run, leaving her score at 153.25 points.
Olympic champion Anna Gasser claimed gold with a total score of 162.50, while Miyabi Onitsuka claimed second with 161.25.
"I am super stoked," Coady said.
"I had pretty low expectations coming into today, with bad weather in the forecast, I was just hoping the conditions would be OK, but when we got here the landing was super soft and no wind, so it was sick.
"I definitely wanted to do the backside 1080 today, I did it in the slopestyle and it felt really good on that jump, I just had to make sure I got the speed right."
The 22-year-old had competed in the slopestyle competition earlier in the competition, falling agonisingly short of a medal, just 0.20 points behind Onitsuka.
"It's always hard to rally for big air after competing in slopestyle earlier in the week, I feel like slopestyle is my discipline, so I kind of put my heart and soul into that, so to come out with a medal in big air is really good."
Australia's tally of six medals at this year's World Championships is the nation's best return in terms of medal count, beating the five medals won in 2011 and 2017.
It is, however, the first time since 2009 that Australia has not had a world champion crowned in either freestyle skiing or snowboarding — the two biannual world championships were held separately until 2015.
Six medals is the same total as winter sports superpower Japan, and more than other established nations such as Sweden, France and 2026 Winter Games hosts Italy.
Matt Graham won silver in the moguls and bronze in the dual moguls competition last week, before Danielle Scott earned silver in the women's aerials.
On Thursday, 20-year-old world championship debutant Josie Baff won silver in the snowboard cross event — ahead of Olympic champion Lindsey Jacobellis.
The most successful world championships follows just one year on from Australia's most successful ever Winter Olympics in Beijing, where Australia won four medals for the first time.