For the first time since 2010, Australia has returned to the top of the medal dais at the Winter Olympics with Jakara Anthony taking gold in the women's moguls.

The 23-year-old, who finished 4th in her Olympic debut four years ago, totally dominated the whole event, and claimed the gold medal with a score of 83.09, a staggering 2.81 points ahead of the second placed Jaelin Kauf of the USA.

In claiming the gold medal, it becomes the first time in Winter Olympic history that Australia has claimed multiple medals on the same day, following Tess Coady's bronze medal in the snowboard slopestyle earlier in the day.

It was an incredibly calm performance from the Australian, who controlled the contest from start to finish, leading after every qualification round, with every score in the 80's.

Anthony is the first Australian to claim a gold medal at the Winter Olympics since Lydia Lassila in the aerials in 2010. Lassila was on hand in Beijing working for Channel 7 to witness Anthony's golden performance and welcomed her to the elite club of six Australians who have won Winter Olympic gold.

"It's just incredible, the hard work does pay off!" a jubilant Jakara said after her golden run.

"It's been a dream of mine my whole life to be an Olympic champion, actually I don't think I've ever stopped dreaming about it."

And while Australian fans were on the edge of their seats as the Super Final got underway, underneath that Australian unfirm was a picture of calmness and control.

"I pay zero attention to what the other scores are, in fact, I don't even know what my score was, all I saw was the number one after my name!"

Jakara was quick to pay tribute to her fellow teammates and her support crew for keeping her calm and focused in the lead up to the Games, and then throughout competition.

"It's a testament to myself and the work of the team around me. Not only does it make me a better athlete, but a better person as well."

Earlier, Britt Cox and Sophie Ash were unable to advance to the final 12, finishing 14th and 16th respectively with scores of 73.04 and 70.47.

For Cox, it ended her 4th Olympic campaign, having made her debut as a 15-year-old in Vancouver in 2010.

The self-confessed ‘mother hen‘ of the Australian team was philosophical after her run in the final 20.

"To be honest, I didn't feel it was my best run of the night. I feel like my final training run just before that one was my best run that I did all night, and for that I'm actually really proud," Britt said.

And Cox was circumspect as to whether she'll stay in the sport after an already glittering career.

"I don't know. I said to myself, 'I'm not going to make any decisions until after the event here', and I guess that time has come, so I have a little bit of thinking to do.

"At the moment, my passion for the sport couldn't be stronger and I just have so much fire in the belly still and love the sport. It's just a matter of how much more my body can keep going," Britt said.

While Sophie Ash enjoyed every moment of her first Olympic Games.

"Everyone is just putting down quality at every run," Sophie said.

"I'm really happy to have made the last 20, it was an awesome experience and I wanted to see how far I could go.

"There's always stuff to improve on and that's my job now.

olympics.com.au
Damian Kelly

Cooper Woods has announced his arrival as a top international mogul skier with an incredible 6th place finish in freezing and blustery conditions at the Zhangjiakou Genting Snow Park.

The 21-year-old, who hails from Pambula Beach on the NSW South Coast, scored a highly impressive 78.88 in a red-hot men's final, with Sweden's Walter Wallberg upsetting pre-event favourite Canadian Mikael Kingsbury to take gold with a score of 83.23.

Cooper produced his best score of the night at the end in the super final, after working his way up through last chance qualifying, the final 20, the final 12 and eventually the final six in the cutthroat format.

In making the final six, Cooper joined Dale Begg-Smith (2006 & 2010) and Matt Graham (2018) as the only Australian men to make the a moguls super final.

"Oh wow, what a night," a jubilant Cooper said following his final run.

"It was a star-struck moment at the start of the super final actually.

"This is what I've been working towards, and I just stuck to the plan and look what happened.

"I'm really proud of what I did out there, I'm just so happy."

Cooper's teammate Brodie Summers also put in outstanding performances to finish 10th, which marked the first time two Australians had reached the 12-man final together.

The top-10 achieve for Brodie, a triple Olympian, was his best finish in Olympic competition which beats a 13th place at Sochi in 2014.

Earlier in the evening, 2018 silver medallist Matt Graham was unable to advance to the final 20 after a challenging second run, which followed his DNF in the opening qualifying round.

Matt showed enormous courage just to make the start line in Beijing, having fractured his collarbone in December 2021. 

In an emotional state post-competition, Matt refused to blame the injury on his performance.

"I don't think it stopped my performance. I just wish I could have done better," Matt said while fighting back tears.

"It's so tough to describe how I'm feeling, but this hurts more than the collarbone.

"I know I put pressure on myself after not finishing on Thursday, but I felt I was handling it really well, I just know I had so much more to give."

James Matheson was able to improve on his opening round performance with a score of 73.20, however the score was not enough to see him move through to the last 20.

A two-time Olympian, James announced his retirement from the sport following the competition and mentioned that father time has caught up with him.

"It's a young man and young lady's sport, the body just can't keep going," James said.

He will leave the sport knowing the future is incredibly bright.

"Moguls is an individual sport, but we are an incredible close-knit team. I get to watch people I regard as family keep competing, which is pretty good."

Geoff Lipshut, Chef De Mission of the Beijing 2022 Australian Winter Olympic Team, paid tribute to James' career and character.

"James is a model high performance athlete and student. He successfully balanced sport and studies and proudly represented his country at two Olympic Games," Mr Lipshut said.

"James has always been the nicest of nice guys in the mogul program and the best of teammates."

In an emotional night for Australia's moguls team, Taylah O'Neill also announced her retirement after a knee injury curtailed her capacity to compete in Beijing.

Mr Lipshut acknowledged the contribution the 27-year-old has made to Australian mogul skiing.

"Taylah is a credit to herself and sport. After skiing at the 2014 Games, Taylah had a run of injuries which saw her miss 2018, and another difficult injury journey to 2022.

"Taylah had always been a great teammate and contributor on and off the snow."

The attention now turns to the Jakara Anthony, Britt Cox and Sophie Ash in the women's moguls on Sunday. Sophie will hope to use qualifying at 9pm AEDT to join Jakara and Britt in the final from 10:30pm AEDT.

olympics.com.au
Damian Kelly

 Jakara Anthony has finished the first women's moguls qualifying round on top, with a strong 2.64 points buffer on the rest of the field, marking the first time in Olympics history an Aussie woman has led a moguls qualifying round.

The 23-year-old put down a faultless run to post an intimidating score of 83.75, more than 2.5 points clear of the defending Olympic champion Perrine Laffont of France.

Jakara, competing at her second Olympics, sent an ominous warning to her rivals declaring there was room for improvement ahead of Sunday's final.

"I was pretty excited for that run, stoked actually," she declared.

"Some improvement ahead for sure, got some training to do and then get ready for Sunday.

A familiar name joins Jakara on a one-way ticket to the final. Britt Cox, a four-time Olympian and self-confessed ‘mother hen' of the Australian moguls team, qualified ninth which advances two Aussie women from the one Olympic qualifying session for the first time.

Britt was satisfied that everything went to plan.

"[That was] a stock standard run that I executed well and I am happy to go through with lots to improve on in training," Britt said.

With Jakara agonisingly finishing fourth in this event at PyeongChang 2018 and Britt positing fifth placings at the last two Olympics, both know a medal is well within their grasp come Sunday.

In moguls qualifying, the top 10 competitors advance directly to the finals. The remaining competitors who started are given another chance on Sunday to make the final 20, before the competition is culled to 12, and then six competitors will fight for the medals.

Sophie Ash finished in 13th place on her Olympic debut and the 25-year-old will compete again in Sunday's qualifying.

It was heartbreak for Taylah O'Neill, who did start but was unable to complete the run due to an ACL injury.

Damian Kelly
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