Graham wins first medal of the season in Waterville Valley duals

Olympic medallist Matt Graham has skied to the 26^th World Cup podium of his impressive career, following a silver medal performance in the dual moguls in Waterville Valley, USA, – the birthplace of freestyle skiing.

Graham, a NSW Institute of Sport scholarship athlete, showed great form throughout the day, making his way through the earlier rounds with ease before winning difficult match ups against Frenchman Benjamin Cavet in the quarter finals 20-15, and an impressive semi-final victory over Ikuma Horishima of Japan 18-17.

In the big final Graham faced legendary Canadian Mikael Kingsbury, and in a close duel right to the finish line Kingsbury prevailed 21-14, extending his record for the most ever wins for a freestyle skier to 94. Rounding out the podium in third place was Filip Gravenfors of Sweden who defeated Horishima for the bronze.

“It is nice to be on the podium for the first time this season” said Graham.

“Duals is always a long challenging day, a lot of top-to-bottoms at crazy fast speeds, at the start of the day I was just happy to get through to the finals, and once they came around it was just full send from there.

“I have felt like all of the pieces have been there, but it just hasn’t stuck yet, making a few mistakes in the previous events, so it was nice to have some solid skiing today, especially this week after battling the flu and bedridden two days ago with chronic fevers and still feeling under the weather yesterday was pretty rewarding.”

Also in action were Aussies Oliver Logan in 27^th, Cooper Woods 30^th, Edwad Hill 32^nd, George Murphy 35^th and women Charlotte Wilson 18^th, Lottie Lodge 31^st, Lucy Pernice 34^th and Emma Bosco 35^th.

Next weekend the mogul skiers compete at the World Cup event in Val St.Come, Canada, with moguls on February 1 and dual moguls February 2.

Story and photos courtesy of OWIA