Matt Graham has put down one of the best runs of his life to win Winter Olympic silver in the men's moguls at Phoenix Snow Park tonight.

Becoming the 11th Australian to win a Winter Olympic medal, Graham saved his best run for last scoring 82.57 to put him in first place with three skiers to come.

Only one would better his score and it was the overwhelming favourite for top spot on the podium, Mikael Kingsbury.
The all-conquering Canadian pulled off a near flawless run scoring 86.63 to take home the gold. Japan's Daichi Hara won bronze with a run of 82.19.

Graham was undoubtedly ecstatic with the result.

"It's pretty awesome," Graham said. 

"I'm over the moon, it still hasn't sunk in but I can't wait to celebrate.

"It was amazing putting down that final run which was my best run of the night. I knew when I saw the score I was going to be on the podium.

“I came out today and, actually the first training session before the qualification session didn’t exactly go as I would’ve liked, maybe I just felt a little bit stiff and then went inside, took a breather and came out firing. 

“I was just having fun and when I’m having fun I’m skiing the best.”

Graham said the support in the crowd meant so much.

“It’s amazing, my teammate Jimmy they’re his brother and his best mates and they’re mine too so it’s amazing having all those guys out, all the families, my family in particular and, you know, my three friends here and my girlfriend — it’s really amazing to have them all here and I’m just really happy," Graham said.

“And my grandparents too, besides mum and dad they’re a very close second to my biggest supporters and it means the world to me to have them here and I can’t wait to hug them and celebrate later."

Kingsbury has now won it all in the sport and despite his lofty status he still had time for some kind words for his good mate Graham. 

"I'm yet to see his run but Matt is so consistent and so precise in everything he does - he is one of the toughest competitors I have," Kingsbury said.

"I always want him to do well but I want to do a little better."

Competing at his second Games, Graham earlier moved into the Super Final with a score of 80.01 to progress as the fourth highest ranked runner.

Prior to that he put down a superb run in Final 1 to score 81.39 to claim second and easily progress from the top 20 into the top 12. 

Olympic rookie James Matheson finished just outside the cutoff in Final 1 placing 14th with a score of 75.98. 

“Coming out here today I basically had nothing to lose, it was just to come out here and do my best run without any place in mind," Matheson said.

"I was just focused on the simple things and that ended up getting me my second best result ever to date.

“Overall I’m really happy with it and to narrowly scrape on the next final was just the cherry on top and also seeing my friends with their shirts off was pretty funny.”

Teammate Rohan Chapman-Davies didn’t better his run from Friday night in Qualification 2, and recorded a best score of 73.96, finishing in 22nd place overall.

Unfortunately, after completing an on snow assessment, it was decided that Brodie Summers would not line up for the event.

Summers flared up his ACL knee injury at training before the first run on Friday and was not showing great mobility tonight so chose not to risk further injury.

Matt Bartolo/Georgia Thompson
olympics.com.au

Australian competition on Day Three will be based out of Phoenix Snow Park with the women’s halfpipe qualifications followed by the men’s mogul skiing finals.

In the moguls, the men will be looking to build on performance of the Aussie women from Day 2, where three skiers made the first final, before Jakara Anthony and Britt Cox went on to finish fourth and fifth respectively in the Super Final.


Next Up
Snowboard Halfpipe
Holly Crawford will become a four-time Olympian when she lines up for the ladies snowboard halfpipe qualification runs at 1.30pm (3.30pm AEDT). Joining Crawford is Olympic rookie and Youth Olympic Games silver medalist Emily Arthur. Crawford and Arthur will be aiming for a top 12 finish to advance to Monday’s final. Read the event preview HERE.

Moguls
Following an exciting night of women's moguls action, it’s the men’s turn to line up for the second moguls qualification run and finals. After finishing 9th in the first qualification run, world number three Matt Graham has automatically qualified for today’s 20-skier final. Rohan Chapman-Davies, James Matheson  and Brodie Summers have one more chance to join Matt in the finals, by securing a top-10 position in the second qualification run from 7.30pm local time (9.30pm AEDT).

Catch up
Jakara Anthony and Britt Cox finished just off the podium in the women's moguls finals at Bokwang Snow Park late Sunday night. Olympic debutant Anthony put down a score of 75.38 in the Super Final to claim an exceptional fourth place. Triple Olympian Cox was just behind her, finishing fifth in the Super Final with a score of 74.08. Madii Himbury qualified for the first final, finishing in 20th place, while Claudia Gueli finished 23rd on debut. Read the event recap HERE.

In Cross Country Skiing, dual Olympian Callum Watson bettered his Sochi 2014 result in the men’s 15km + 15km Skiathlon event on Day 2, finishing in 58th place in extremely difficult conditions. Read more HERE.

Alex Ferlazzo has made history last tonight, securing Australia’s best Olympic men’s luge result with a 28th place finish. Read the event wrap HERE.

Slopestyle Snowboard: 17-year-old Tess Coady ruptured her ACL in the final training run prior to making her Olympic debut in the Snowboard Slopestyle, bringing a premature end to her Olympic campaign. Read more HERE.

Georgia Thompson
olympics.com.au

Jakara Anthony and Britt Cox have finished just off the podium in the women's moguls finals at Bokwang Snow Park.

On Olympic debut, 19-year-old Jakara Anthony was exceptional as she claimed fourth after scoring 75.38 in the Super Final.

Cox headed into the Super Final with the second highest score in Final 2 before scoring 75.08 to claim fifth place. 

Perrine Laffont of France won the gold medal with a score of 78.65, with defending Olympic Champion Justine Dufour-Lapointe of Canada claiming silver and Kazakhstan's Yulia Galysheva taking the bronze medal. 

“I had a lot of runs today and they progressively got better," said Anthony. 

"I think my first two final runs were my best and then full on day so by the time you get to the Super Final it starts to drop off a bit. It wasn’t my best run of the day but I’m still really happy with how I performed.

“The whole thing’s been a massive learning experience for me and I’ll definitely be taking all the experience that I had here going into Beijing 2022."

After having to come through qualification 2 to make the top 20, Anthony produced one of her best runs of the competition with a score of 76.81 to move through to the final 12 in fourth place. She then finished the second final in 4th with a score of 76.85.

Cox closely followed Anthony with a score of 75.79 to make the top 12 in 5th before then scoring 78.28 to move into the Super Final in 2nd.

“My goal for this week and for tonight in particular was to absolutely go for it, give it everything I’ve got and I really truly believe that I did that tonight so for that I’m really happy and I’m really proud," Cox said.

"It didn’t really pay off for me in the Super Final, I went too big and too fast and was scrappy in the middle but I achieved my goal of going for it so that’s a positive and I’m proud of that”

Over the past eight years Cox has seen the sport develop sport so much in Australia and she is not only proud of her perforance but also that of her teammates.

“This is my third Games so it’s not my first rodeo but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this experience.

"I've especially enjoyed being part of a full team, it’s been so exciting with this being the first time we’ve ever had four women from Australia competing in the moguls so I’m really proud to have three other teammates there skiing alongside me.

"That’s super exciting but I’m definitely looking forward to the next four years and to Beijing in the future.”

Madii Himbury, who had earlier progressed from qualification 2 scored 68.19 to finish 20th overall.

Himbury said it was “pretty exciting” to make it into the finals.

“I squeezed into the top 20, just, and I was hoping to go a bit faster and a bit bigger and I did," she said.

"I just had a little mistake on the bottom there, drifted a little and so didn’t get the score that I’m hoping for but I did what I wanted to do and I went for it so I’m happy.

“It’s been pretty good, the noise carries as well so we can hear all the cheers up in the start gate. We’ve got lots of friends and family here so it was all very exciting.

Claudia Gueli unfortunately had a fall between her two jumps in qualification 2 and finished 23rd overall.
"That was really fun, I was happy with my skiing up until the little hiccup, but regardless it’s been such a journey so I can’t complain," said Gueli.

"It’s pretty good conditions, the course is a bit firmer because it’s colder today but we’re used to it from other courses around the globe.

"I got an edge, I was a bit too over the wrong foot on one of the turns and once that happens it’s really hard to come back from so I pulled out, tried to save myself but it doesn’t always pan out the way you want it to.

"I'm going to go home and rest up and start training in about a month to prepare for the next year."

Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au

Australia’s female mogul skiers have opened Australia’s PyeongChang 2018 campaign at Phoenix Park this morning.

Two-time Olympian and 2017 World Champion Britt Cox was the first of the Aussies on the course in Friday’s qualification run, progressing through to Final 1 after finishing 6th place with a score of 76.78.

“It was so fun to get out there, I always say that comp day is my favourite day,” she said.

“Competing at the Olympics and the first event of the Games is really exciting. The course was ripping this morning, so I had a lot of fun.”

For the 23-year-old, who also has a World Championships gold medal and a Crystal Globe as the top ranked freestyle skier of 2017, Friday’s run was “business as usual”.

“I came out in training this morning, got to know the course, was working on my technique and fine-tuning things,” she said.

“Whenever I click into my skis I’m happy, so I had a really good time out here this morning.”

Cox was the only one of the Australian contingent directly through to Final 1 after placing in the top ten.

Australia’s three other female moguls skiers will now need to place in the top ten of qualification 2, which will feature the 20 skiers that have not already progressed, on Sunday to join Cox in Final 1.

Olympic debutant Jakara Anthony finished in 14th place with a score of 69.49 and said that it felt “pretty awesome” to have put down her first Winter Games run.

“There’s room to improve, I can only go up from now,” she said.

“There’s lots of girls that are great that are in front of me a lot of the time or sometimes they’re behind me, it switches up a bit so you don’t really know who’s going to ski well on the course or not.”

The 19-year-old’s fellow teammate and Olympic debutant Madii Himbury finished in 15th place after her first run which featured her signature backflip.

“Today was my first Olympic run so it was a bit nerve racking. Hopefully next time I can go a little bit faster for the whole run,” she said.

“It’s all very exciting, last night it kind of sunk in a bit more with the Welcome Ceremony. The nerves are now out of the way so now we can go and rip it on Finals day.”

Also making her first Olympic appearance in PyeongChang, Claudia Gueli finished in the top 20 with a score of 68.68.
The 20-year-old said that she will be aiming to pick up more speed in the second qualification round.

“I think with the right attitude and the right preparation I should be able to do it,” she said.

“It’s absolutely incredible, I’ve dreamt about this my whole life … I came out today with the best training I’ve had throughout the three days of training. I got to put all the pieces together in comp so it turned out really well.”

The Women's finals will be held on Day 2 and Men's finals on Day 3 (February 10-11). See more of the freestyle skiing Team HERE. 

David Barden
olympics.com.au

Australia’s full contingent moguls team have enjoyed their first training run on the PyeongChang 2018 course – and they believe the conditions are primed for Australian success.

Four Australian men and four Australian women will compete in the freestyle skiing event, beginning with qualifications on Day 0 (Friday 9 February).
The team competed on the Phoenix Snow Park course in February 2017 but recent adjustments to the moguls has put the competition into Australia’s advantage.

“The moguls are actually quite big and firm which adds a bit more technicality to the course,” Sochi Olympian Matt Graham said.

“Last year from my perspective the course may have been slightly easy so they’ve done a really good job to build the top section up and put a bit more pitch and firmer and icier moguls in which I think will work into [Australia’s] favour as we’re generally really technical skiers so that gives us a lot of confidence going forward into the week.”

Graham, who is competing in his second Winter Olympic Games, said the course design would "separate the men from the boys".

“For us [the course is] quite normal; it’s 250m, it’s about 28 degrees in pitch but what can change is just the snow conditions, the shape of the moguls, the transitions to the jumps.

“That’s the stuff they can really manipulate to make the course more technical, and for us we thrive on technical courses and challenging courses.”

Fellow men’s mogul skier Brodie Summers – who is also lining up for his second Olympic berth – agreed that the course was tough but was a welcome personal challenge.

Returning from major surgery on his ACL in September 2017, Summers relished his the opportunity to try out the Winter Olympic venue just days before competition.

“Last night I looked at it and I thought this will be a really good test for [for my knee] because as we’ve discussed the conditions are quite challenging and it’s a technical course,” he said.

“But after the first two runs I warmed up, I relaxed into it and I had a really good time.

“I looked at the video after training and I thought ‘you know what, the skiing’s not looking too bad’ so I’m feeling good about where I’m at.”

Olympic debutant Jakara Anthony said for the moment, the experience felt similar to her World Cup appearances – which is good news for Australia given the 19-year-old finished fifth at the first Deer Valley World Cup in January this year.

“I’m just trying to approach it the same as a World Cup so that I can put together the run that I’m trying to do, similar to what I’ve been doing all season,” Anthony said.

Still, it will be an incredibly tough battle for a spot on the podium and some of Anthony’s greatest threats are her teammates, including world number 4 Britt Cox  who will make her third Olympic start at just 23 years of age.

Cox, who took out the World Championship title in Sierra Nevada, Spain, in March 2017, said the women’s moguls’ event would be one to watch in PyeongChang.

“It’s a really exciting time in women’s mogul skiing at the moment and I feel really honoured to be a part of that,” Cox said.

“At the moment, anyone within the top 10 is capable of putting down the best run on the night and that’s really exciting and that’s really motivating for me for when I’m up there and training in the next couple of days to push myself and let that competitive vibe come out of me in my training in through to the competition.”

Moguls qualification will be held on Day 0 (February 9), with Women's finals on Day 2 and Men's finals on Day 3 (February 10-11). See more of the freestyle skiing Team HERE.

Candice Keller
olympics.com.au