Jakara Anthony has won her second career gold medal and Australia’s third of the Milano Cortina Games, clinching the first ever dual moguls Olympics title.
The 27-year-old Anthony entered the new event to the Olympic programme with steely determination after failing to defend her Beijing title in the regular event when she lost her footing in the medals round.
Anthony swept through the early round of the dual moguls in ruthless fashion and then downed three Americans in a row, including beating the singles champion, Elizabeth Lemley, in the semi-finals.
With skiers racing side-by-side down the Livigno course and judged on turns, jumps and speed, the Victorian overcame another American, Jaelin Kauf, in the final to take the crown. Judges awarded Anthony the victory, scoring 20 points to 15. A gaggle of Australian supporters cheered and waved yellow inflated kangaroos on the side of the mountain.
It was Kauf’s second silver medal of the Games while a shaken Lemley also picked up her second medal, beating France’s Perrine Laffont in the bronze medal final.
The victory sees Anthony become the first Australian winter athlete to win two gold medals, while 2026 becomes the most successful Winter Games for the country. Anthony has joined fellow moguls skier Cooper Woods and snowboard cross racer Josie Baff as Olympic champions in Italy, while Scotty James won a silver medal in the men’s snowboard halfpipe.
At the medal ceremony, Anthony broke into a wide smile as she celebrated her historic second Olympic gold. She had been the favourite to win the singles but wobbled out of line in her second run to finish eighth. In the single moguls, riders tackle the course solo and the highest score wins.
Coming off an agonising loss in the Olympic halfpipe final, snowboarder James says he has every intention of staying in the sport, likely for another run at the gold four years from now. He said he wants to continue to try to leave an imprint on the sport despite being 35 in four years’ time and will likely still have to deal with a growing core of Japanese riders. At the top of the list is Yuto Totsuka, who beat James by a sliver on Friday to take the second straight halfpipe gold back to Japan.
“It’s OK to be upset, it’s all right to cry. It’s OK to get frustrated, and it’s OK to not achieve exactly what you want,” said the 31-year-old James. “Because tomorrow the sun will rise, I’ll give the medal to my son, he won’t even know what it is, but it’ll be a proud moment to give it to him.”
Earlier on Saturday, a heartbroken Laura Peel pulled out of the Games, with Australia’s two-time aerials world champion unable to recover from a serious knee injury. Peel ruptured her ACL at a pre-Games training camp in Switzerland, in early February, but had refused to give up hope of winning her first medal at her fourth Olympics.
Before the injury Peel had found some impressive form, winning a recent World Cup event in Canada, and was considered a strong medal chance in Italy. With official training on the competition jump site getting under way, however, she realised she wasn’t up to competing and made the decision to withdraw.
“Two weeks ago I took a hit in training and ruptured my ACL, along with a couple of other things,” the 36-year-old posted on social media. “I have given absolutely everything to keep this Olympic dream alive, but ultimately my knee is not stable enough to fall 15m from the sky, no matter how much my heart wants it.
“Coming into these Games I was feeling calm and ready knowing that there was nothing more I could have done to prepare for this moment, but it is not to be. Today this sport feels cruel, but the people it has brought into my life will always mean more than any medal ever could – both would have been nice though.”
