Freestyle Moguls heads up Winter Olympics schedule

Prior to the Opening Ceremony of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics tonight, the qualifications for the men’s & women’s Freestyle Ski Moguls kicks off and there are a bunch of Aussie athletes competing.

Eight athletes will take part in the moguls at the Games – four men and four women – the biggest contingent Australia has taken to a Winter Olympics.

PyeongChang 2018 will be the third Winter Olympics for experienced skier Britt Cox, who starts the competition as current World Champion. Brodie Summers has recently recovered from injury and is set to use the Games as his return to competitive skiing. Matt Graham has been performing well on the World Cup circuit this season and is currently ranked number three in the world. Youngster Jakara Anthony joins the Australian Olympic Team following her impressive fifth-place finish in Deer Valley last month.

Mogul Skiing Coach of the 2018 Australian Olympic Team Peter Topalovic (Toppa) is excited for the competition to finally get underway.

“The Australian Freestyle Moguls team arrived to Korea safely and I am pleased with our preparation to begin the Games” said Topalovic.

“It’s our biggest Moguls contingent ever at an Olympic Games and we also have the biggest mogul team at the Games equal only to the USA.”

Toppa is particularly excited that Brodie Summers is back on the moguls course.

“Seeing Brodie back in action is truly remarkable, he has overcome an ACL reconstruction in record time which is just fantastic” he said.

“We also have several new faces in the Australian Olympic Team – Jakara Anthony, Madii Himbury, Claudia Gueli, James Matheson and Rohan Chapman-Davies – which is a testament to the depth of freestyle moguls in this country.”

“We have spent several nights training on the Olympic course now and it’s a tough one, the moguls are huge and they will only get bigger as the course evolves leading into the competition, I’m pleased with how the athletes are adapting to the course conditions and on top of that temperatures have been averaging -18 C (plus wind chill) which is unusually cold here in Bokwang Phoenix Park”.

Tune in on Channel 7 from 12pm for coverage of the Freestyle Ski Moguls Qualifications.