Sydney, Feb 7: Mogul skier Jakara Anthony has broken Australia’s 12-year-wait for a Winter Olympic gold after dominating the freestyle skiing women’s moguls at the Beijing 2022 Games. “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,” said the 23-year-old after her golden final run on Sunday night.
The Olympic dreamer dominated the slopes with a score of 83.09 (from a total 100), 2.81 points ahead of American runner-up Jaelin Kauf. But the Aussie champion remained calm and controlled throughout her final run, paid little mind to her scores until it was announced she came out on top. “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,” said Anthony. Her first-place finish broke a number of Winter Olympic records for the unlikely summer nation.
Anthony became the sixth Australian to claim gold at a Winter Olympics and was able to follow in the footsteps of Australia’s last Winter gold medallist Lydia Lassilam who won in the freestyle skiing aerials at the Vancouver 2010 Games. Anthony also helped Australia record its best-ever single-day medal result as Tess Coady claimed bronze in snowboard slopestyle earlier on Sunday. The Queensland native’s Olympic destiny began at just four years old when she began skiing with her family. She began competing on the world stage at just 16 at the World Cup in Deer Valley USA as part of the Australian Development Ski Team. Since then, she moved on to bigger and better feats, making her Olympic debut at Pyeongchang 2018, where she finished just shy of a medal in fourth place. Coming into the 2022 games Anthony touted a cool excitement to hit the slopes of Zhangjiakou’s Thaiwoo Ski Resort. “They build a really great course and can’t wait to see what they bring first in February,” she said in the lead-up to the Games. And despite the harsh competition and Australia’s underdog position in Winter sports, she knew she and Australia was up for the challenge. “I know that I’m capable of skiing like that. And I was able to let myself do that tonight, which was something really special and something I take a lot of pride in,” said Anthony during an international press conference. “I definitely knew that I had the capability to come out on top.”
