Jakara Anthony Wins Moguls Gold and Tess Coady Slopestyle Bronze in Beiijing
Mountainwatch |Reggae Elliss
Yesterday a good day at the Beijing winter Olympics for Australian athletes with Jakara Anthony winning the gold last night in the moguls while Tess Coady won bronze in the women’s snowboard yesterday afternoon.
It was the first time Australia has won two medals in one day at the Winter Olympics and Jakara’s is the sixth gold medal an Australian athlete has won at a Winter Olympics.
Jakara Anthony has been in form all season with five world cup podiums, including two wins, in the lead up to the games, and she qualified first for the finals after a sizzling run on Friday during the qualification runs last Thursday.
Jakara took that form to the final and set the standard scoring 81.91 in the first run and then 81.29 in the second. Jakara’s top air is where she has an advantage, her corked seven with a mute grab pretty well perfect while her speed and technique the moguls were on point every run.
Jakara was the last competitor in the Super Final and after American Jaelin Kauf scored a solid 80.29 there was no room for error. Jak did the job and put down an awesome winning run, garnering a big 83.09 from the judges.
“I really just tried to stay focussed on what I needed to do,” Jakara said after the win.
Kauf claimed the silver medal while Anastasiia Smirnove, representing the Russian Olympic Committee took the bronze.
Jakara’s win came a few hours after Tess Coady won bronze in the snowboard slopestyle, her highest score 84.15 in the three-run final. New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, the form rider at the moment, won the gold medal with a 92.88 and the USA’s Julia Marino took the silver on 87.88.
Tess has been in great form over the past two seasons and was feeling confident going into the games after winning the World Cup in Laax last month. The bronze medal makes up for the disappointment of the 2018 PyeongChang games where Tess tore her ACL during a practise run on the morning of the events.
“I came back, I got my redemption yesterday,” Tess said after the final. “Today I wanted to have the best time, enjoy it the most and just send it.”
As she said in her recent Mountainwatch interview, she had two options after that setback – either quit or put in the required work to get back to the top. Tess has worked hard since that injury, her focus and dedication earning her the bronze medal and the 21-year-old has a bright professional future .
Tess’ next event in these Olympics is the snowboard big air qualifications on Monday, Feb 14.
In other results on the weekend our strong mogul team performed well, and Australia had three skiers competing in the women’s finals. Britt Cox, competing in her fourth Olympics, ended up 14thwhile Sophie Ash placed 16thoverall.
The men’s mogul team also performed strongly, with Olympic debutant Cooper Woods leading the way finishing in sixth place and is going to a force in international moguls over the next few years. Brodie Summers also skied into the finals, finishing 10th, while James Matheson was 24th.
However, it was a disappointing games for the 2018 silver medallist matt Graham who was up against it from the start after suffering a serious collarbone injury during training for the World Cup in Ruka in mid-December. Matt worked hard to get to the Games but was not in his peak form and finished 29thoverall.
In the men’s snowboard slopestyle Matty Cox was looking solid during his last run but slid out on the landing of his last jump. While he didn’t make the finals in the slopestyle, Matty will be back in the Big Air qualifications on Feb 14.
