Jakara Anthony leads women’s moguls

BARWON Heads’ Jakara Anthony has laid down an Olympic gold medal marker, finishing on top of qualifying in the women’s moguls at Zhangjiakou last night (Thursday, February 3).

The 23-year-old Australian blitzed the Beijing course to finish on top of the 30-skier field, while four-time Olympian Britt Cox was in ninth place.

No Australian man finished in the top 10, with 2018 silver medallist Matt Graham bitterly disappointed after failing to finish.

Anthony posted a score of 83.75 to sit clear of defending Olympic champion Perrine Laffont of France, who scored 81.11.

All 30 skiers completed the first run of qualifying, with the top 10 skipping the second round to move through to the first women’s final this Sunday.

Fellow Australian Sophie Ash finished in 13th while Taylah O’Neill, who has been battling a serious knee injury, didn’t finish.

Brodie Summers was the best of the men in green and gold, just missing the top 10 in 11th while Olympic debutant Cooper Woods placed 14th and James Matheson was 20th.

Anthony finished a surprise fourth at the last Olympics in PyeongChang, but arrived in Beijing as a medal favourite after jostling with Laffont and Japanese teen sensation Anri Kawamura in the World Cup standings all season.

The Victorian skier was delighted to transform that World Cup form into Olympic competition.

“I’m really proud and happy with what I was able to achieve just then,” Anthony said.

“I transferred really well from training to competition but there’s definitely still bits I want to work on cleaning up and improving which is a really great position to be in, I think.

“You don’t want to be going into finals maxed out so I’m really happy with where I’m at.”

Out early on the course, former world champion Cox was also thrilled with her performance under the lights, with temperatures dipping to minus 10.

Cox, who finished fifth in 2018, scored 72.26 for her run.

“I was so happy that I was able to put down the run that I was doing in training,” the 27-year-old told AAP.

“I executed the points that my coaches and I talked about and I still feel like I’ve got a little bit left in the tank, so we will see what happens and build on that in training.”

Olympic champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada was the top men’s qualifier with Graham saying he got caught in the tricky conditions late in the evening.

“The snow is obviously really firm and solid which makes the moguls quite catchy and I just landed the top jump and maybe let it run a bit too much and then got caught up and spat out pretty quickly,” Graham said.

“I’m pretty disappointed with how it went – obviously I want to be right up there but I’m fortunate to get another chance in the second qualifying round.”

The moguls team are among the first of the 43-strong Australian contingent in China to start their Games competition.