Since winning Australia’s first medal – a gold – at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, Cooper Woods has been living out of his not-so-pristine white Olympic team bag, his medal shoved to the bottom, its ribbon already fraying from use.

It’s been everywhere.
 
From attending the Formula 1 in Melbourne to the GQ Awards, ringing the bell at the WSL Championship Tour alongside his hero Mick Fanning, and catching up with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder has spent the months since his win still trying to make sense of what happened.
 
“I still feel like I’m there,” the 25-year-old from Pambula Beach said.

But the gold medal – passed between several hands; weighed, examined, worn around necks – tells only part of the story, because the run that changed the course of not only Woods’ career, but the Australian Olympic Team’s campaign, didn’t come from certainty. It came from self-doubt, pressure, and a moment that, by his own admission, could have gone the other way.
 
“I was struggling heading into these Olympics,” Woods shared. “I didn’t have the cleanest run of World Cups heading in, so, my confidence was a bit shot.”
 
After finishing sixth at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the seasons that followed were bumpy. A knee injury requiring surgery halted momentum, and what Woods has since described as a rough patch left him struggling to express himself in the way he wanted to on snow.

Returning for the 2025/26 season, Woods’ results hovered between top-10 and top-30 finishes – consistent, but not enough to mark him as a leading contender heading into Milano Cortina.
 
Just days before the final run, it looked like his campaign had come undone. Missing the top-10 qualifying round – “a punch to the gut” – Woods was left trying to reconcile how a run he felt proud of had fallen short.
 
“[My sport psychologist and I] had a very deep conversation where I kind of broke down a little bit due to frustration, as everyone does,” he said. “She did such an amazing job to remind me who I am, what we’re here to do, and what to achieve.”
 
“Essentially, she was just there sticky taping me back up, and I, funnily enough, wiped my tears away at the end of the conversation, just being like, ‘This is going to be a pretty funny conversation in two days’ time if we turn this around.'”
 
Forty-eight hours later, as the final athlete to drop down the 245m course, Woods produced a career-best run, scoring 83.71 to claim his first-ever Olympic medal – a gold. But what made it possible wasn’t something he could easily find in himself. It was something he borrowed from the people around him until he could find it again himself.
 
“It’s crazy going from such a low moment…to two days later resetting and being around your people,” he said. “It was so nice having my family there…heading into that last day, it was game on.”
 
“I struggled to believe that I could do it, and I had those that believed I could do it, especially with my run heading into the Olympics.”
 
The chaos of what followed was still settling as Woods stood at the top of the podium. He didn’t even know until minutes before, that he had tied with the man from Canada widely regarded as the greatest moguls skier of all time.

“I originally didn’t know that I tied with Mikael Kingsbury,” he said. “It wasn’t only until we were around the corner getting changed for the podium where he was like, ‘Hey, we tied!’ I just saw [place one] and went, ‘I’ve done it, oh my God,’ and just went absolutely insane.”
 
With the setback of missing the top 10 igniting bigger fires in him, Woods seems to feel most alive when facing pressure, speaking about it with a kind of reverence – finding the feeling genuinely beautiful in what most would call the ugly side of sport.
 
“To bounce back from the months before, even the couple days before to achieving Olympic gold, I really embrace the pressure. I live for those moments.”
 
“It’s what you think about when you’re a kid and you’re dropping last at the Winter Olympics, you know, everything’s down to you,” Woods explained.
 
“The time away from family, the sacrifices [you make], the time you’re in the gym throwing up. All these little moments, for just 30 seconds to drop last – it’s the most beautiful experience you can get.”

“The thing with pressure is, if you can embrace it, it can be your best friend. And if you don’t embrace it, it will chew you up and spit you back out. So that was utterly incredible, that whole experience.”
 
Woods’ medal came approximately a week into the Games, at a time when Australians were beginning to feel the weight of a medal drought. The pressure was heightened when, 24 hours earlier, Beijing Olympic Champion and fellow NSWIS scholarship holder Jakara Anthony made an uncharacteristic slip in the women’s Moguls final – a gold many had considered already hers.

With three Australians in the top eight of the men’s final, Woods’ unexpected medal became the pebble that sparked Australia’s greatest Winter Games ever – followed by consecutive medals from Jakara Anthony, Josie Baff, Scotty James, Matt Graham, and Dani Scott.
 
“What was more insane was the crazy spark that went back through the Australians coming off the disappointment of Jakara’s result…It was just this domino effect and we’re [the team] all just going ‘Get in!’  Woods said. “We all knew we could do it, and that was the thing, when one fell, they all fell.

“But the thing with us too, is that there’s always more…We can get more medals.”
 
“It isn’t the end…we’re only just getting [started]. And I think now even the community of Australia [is going] ‘We’re actually pretty good at winter sports!’, and you can feel the rally behind everyone. It’s a super exciting time; I look forward to the 2030 Winter Olympics in France.”
 
Woods’ story carries the shape of a classic Hollywood script – the unknown athlete receiving the call to redeem the events of Beijing, the denial, the threshold crossed with sticky tape and tears, and the ultimate triumph. But when asked whether that narrative belongs to him, his answer is more complicated, and more honest.
 
“I mean, I was an underdog, you know,” Woods explained. “Things weren’t going my way and I had a rough couple of years.”
 
“After Beijing, I started to get some World Cup podiums and I got injured. It was so hard to claw my way back, and every time I was getting closer, I just kept falling in. It felt like everything was kind of caving in. I was like, ‘What is all this work that I’m doing for?'”
 
“But I think anyone in our sport knows that I’m not an underdog, and now I feel like I’ve got the belief and the accolade to prove that I’m not. So, I’m here to go again, and the goal is to get another Olympic gold medal at the 2030 Winter Olympics.”
 
“My next story is consistency.”

With other ambitions to win at the next world championships, score more world cup podiums, and a crystal globe sounding “nice”, Woods admits that winning the pinnacle event still hasn’t silenced his voices of doubt.
 
“It’s interesting – when you win the Olympic medal, I still feel like I’ve got self-doubt,” he said.
 
“Like, [winning gold means that] I’m the best in the world, and I’ve done the highest thing you can do in sport, but I still wake up and I have doubt. But that’s also what drives me. I think the day that I stop thinking that I’m not the best is the day I probably won’t have hunger.”
 
In the end, his advice isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about knowing yourself – working with your flaws, leaning into your strengths, and finding the people who will carry your belief when you can’t.
 
“If I could give you any advice: believe and have the right people around you to keep believing for you when you don’t believe. But also, more importantly, have fun. That’s number one. If you’re not having fun, don’t do it!”
 
Woods’ medal at the bottom of his bag, ribbon fraying, is not just proof of winning, but proof of what happens when you stop waiting for your potential and start borrowing belief from the right people, until one day, in 30 seconds on a mountain, it becomes entirely your own.

Images: Getty, Rachel Tingey (NSWIS)

Tags Cooper Woods

Recommended Articles