Cook's Inspiring Journey Ends

Two inspiring comeback stories reached their crossroads on a foggy night in the Italian Alps. American Emily Cook's came to a bittersweet end. Australian Jacqui Cooper's resulted in an improbable world record.

Cook capped her four-year comeback from devastating foot injuries with a less-than-memorable landing on the aerials course that eliminated her from the finals.

"I will not, in any way, let a little tumble ruin this experience," she insisted. "No way."

And Cooper? At 33, she now looks like a possible Olympic champion instead of someone simply happy to be here.

"I waited eight years for this moment," Cooper said. "Every day, I've dreamed about it, thought about it."

During qualifying eight years ago in the Nagano Games, she crashed and endured leg and head injuries. And in training four years ago at the Salt Lake City Games, she tore up her knee.

She'll be in the finals this time after a qualifying score of 213.36, a mark that bettered the old record, set three years ago by Australian teammate Alisa Camplin, by more than six points.

Cooper won qualifying by nailing a triple back-flip with three full twists for the first time in four years.

"That was probably a great moment for me," Cooper said. "That was a massive confidence booster."

While Cooper will get an encore tonight, Cook will only get to sit in the stands and watch after her first landing went awry.

Leaning forward when her skis hit, her legs flailed out, causing her to nearly do the splits. She tumbled forward, her body somersaulting through the powder. Stopped at the bottom, she cradled her forehead on the back of her hands and stayed there for a second or two -- a rare moment when the effervescent 26-year-old may have dared feel sorry for herself.

"It was just a moment of -- just ugh, so close," said Cook, who has been through worse.

Her mother was killed in a car crash when Cook was a child, victim of a drunken driver. One of her cousins was on American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Cook needed two major surgeries in the two years following the gruesome fractures, dislocations and ligament tears she endured the month before the Salt Lake Games.

"When she was sitting in the stands in Salt Lake City and declared to us that she was going to come back here, there were a lot of people who doubted her, including some medical folk," said her father, Don, who snapped pictures from the front row near the finish line. "And what she has done, what she's endured, the hurdles she's gone over, I couldn't be more proud of what she's done."

Freestyle Skiing Women's Aerials Top 5 Qualifiers 1. Jacqui Cooper, Australia 2. Guo Xinxin, China 3. Li Nina, China 4. Evelyne Leu, Switzerland 5. Veronika Bauer, Canada U.S. Team 16. Jana Lindsey 19. Emily Cook Next Event Today, women's finals (NBC, 8-11 p.m.)