Anthony wins first World Cup gold of the season in Sweden

Jakara Anthony has claimed her first victory of the 2024-2025 season in the moguls event overnight in the Swedish resort of Idre Fjäll, the 23^rd World Cup victory of her incredible career.

The reigning World Cup Champion, and New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) Scholarship athlete, improved as the event went on, qualifying for finals in second with a score of 77.39, and then won the first round of finals on 80.36, ensuring Anthony would be the final skier for the event in the super-final medal round.

Anthony (pictured below) then found another gear for the super-final, posting her highest score of the season from the judges with 82.94 points, to finish 2.05 points ahead of rival Perrine Laffont of France on 80.89 with Canadian Maya Schwinghammer in third with 80.71.

Joining Anthony in the women’s final was 19-year-old NSWIS athlete Charlotte Wilson, who had an impressive qualifying run in just her second World Cup start, advancing to the final in sixth place with a score of 72.84 points, giving Wilson the record for the least amount of starts to qualify for a World Cup final by an Australian mogul skier.

Wilson finished in 10th place in the final with a score of 69.75 points, the first World Cup top-10 of her career.

“It feels good to finish up in first place” said 26-year-old Anthony. “I don’t think there was any more pressure than any other competition, I know what I am trying to achieve every time, I am competing against the other girls but kind of just competing against myself in a way.”

In the men’s event, NSWIS Scholarship athlete Matt Graham qualified for finals in fifth place and finished 11^th in the final after missing out on the top-six super final.

Also in action for Australia were Oliver Logan and NSWIS’s Cooper Woods, with the 21-year-old Logan recording a personal best World Cup performance in 26^th place, with Woods in 30^th.

The men’s event was won by Canadian Mikael Kingsbury, with Ikuma Horishima of Japan in second and local Swedish skier Walter Wallberg finishing third.

The first dual mogul World Cup event of the season was cancelled because of poor weather.

In other NSWIS results: Meila Stalker narrowly missed out on the final of the FIS Big Air World Cup in Bejing, China when she finished in 10th place, while Para Alpine team members Josh Hanlon, Georgia Gunew and Ethan Jackson (guide) will compete over the next few days.

Story courtesy of OWIA

Photos: Chris Hocking