Australian teenager Matt Graham recorded a World Cup season best 19th place in the moguls event in Calgary, Canada.

The result was the Australian Institute of Sport / NSW Institute of Sport athlete’s highest World Cup finish since February of last year.

In his first full season of World Cup competition, Graham has shown steady improvement through the four events contested so far, showing signs that his hard work under the guidance of AIS mogul skiing program head coach Steve Desovich is starting to repaying him.
Graham’s qualification score of 65.43 meant that he missed the cut for the 16 man final by three places.

Canadian Mikael Kingsbury won, while Russian Alexandr Smyshlyaev was second and Japan’s Sho Endo was third.

In the women’s event, AIS / NSWIS skier Britt Cox retains her place in the world’s top 10 rankings despite ending the day also in 19th and missing the finals for the first time since the season opener on December 15.

Cox, 18, was the highest finishing Australian woman with NSWIS athlete Taylah O’Neill, 18, enjoying her best World Cup result, 21stplace.

AIS / NSWIS skier Nicole Parks came 29th.

The women’s event saw a Canadian one-two with Justine Dufour-Lapointe and sister Chloe Dufour-Lapointe with American Eliza Outtrim in third place.

Eighteen-year-old Australian Britteny Cox scored a podium finish in World Cup moguls skiing in Lake Placid in the United States today.

The third place is the sixth podium finish by Australian skiers and snowboarders since last Saturday, continuing the impressive World Cup results by local athletes.

For Cox, an Australian Institute of Sport / NSW Institute of Sport scholarship holder, today’s third place is the second time the talented teenager has risen to a World Cup podium.

The event was won by current Winter Olympic Games gold medallist Hannah Kearney from the United States, with the Czech Replublic’s Nikola Sudova, a two-time World Championship place getter, finishing second.

Cox edged out fourth placed athlete, Canadian Chloe Dufour-Lapointe, who finished second in the last World Championships.

The bronze medal result pushes Cox’s ranking to fifth in the world.

After earning a place in the final 12 with the sixth best qualifying score, the tenacity of the hard working Australian kicked into gear, enabling her to put pressure on her more experienced opponents.

She finished in sixth place in the first final, which earned a place in the medal round for the best six athletes of the day.

Cox, who started the season with goals to improve her speed down the hill, enhance jumps and lift her physical conditioning, proved today that her hard work has paid handsome dividends.

AIS mogul skiing program head coach Steve Desovich, a career coach with 23 years’ experience, said he has never seen an athlete with a stronger work ethic than Cox.

“I cannot say I know what every athlete does in training but from what I have seen, I have never seen a harder worker, more diligent athlete than Britt,” Desovich said.

He said he was both “thrilled” yet a little surprised that Cox had made it to the podium again at this stage of her career.

“With the things we are working on for the longer term, we didn’t expect Britt to get another podium so quickly,” he admitted.

Desovich paid particular praise to NSW winter sports senior sport scientist John Marsden and AIS mogul and aerial skiing coach Jerry Grossi, who have combined to enable Cox’s work ethic to achieve the significant improvement she has shown since last season.

“The work that John Marsden and Jerry Grossi have done has given Britt even better turns and jumps than last year and will enable her to get the very best out of herself,” Desovich said.

Cox’s fellow AIS / NSWIS athlete Nicole Parks finished in 22nd, one place behind another Aussie, Taylah O’Neill.

In the men’s event AIS / NSW athlete Matt Graham, 18, achieved his best World Cup result of the season when he finished 25th.