Aerials & Moguls - 2023/24 Season Wrap

The freestyle skiing disciplines again brought huge success for Australia on the world stage, with no less than four Crystal Globes heading down under after a season for the ages.

In season 2022/23, Australia’s mogul and aerial skiers brought home 18 World Cup podiums including 10 victories. This season, they collected 14 gold medals - all from Jakara Anthony - and a total of 25 podiums, eclipsing last year’s tally and just shy of the 27 podiums achieved in 2016/17 by Britt Cox, Matt Graham, Danielle Scott, Samantha Wells, Lydia Lassila, Brodie Summers, Laura Peel and David Morris.

MOGULS
The 2023/24 season from Jakara Anthony set a new mark for the most successful World Cup campaign in the history of the sport.

With her eighth win of the season, she set a new record for most World Cup wins in a season by any Australian winter sports athlete, but bigger things were in store.

Hannah Kearney’s previously-held record 11 wins during 2011/12 was put in the rear-view mirror with the 2022 Olympic champion taking 14 victories and one third place finish from 16 events, including 11 straight podiums to start the season.

The results saw Anthony win her second, third and fourth Crystal Globes for topping the moguls, dual moguls and overall standings.

Fellow Olympic medallist Matt Graham also had a strong season on the comeback from shoulder surgery, earning World Cup podiums in Canada and Kazakhstan, while Cooper Woods broke through for his first World Cup podium in Waterville, USA, going on to finish the season at a career-high seventh on the single moguls standings.

Ollie Logan made a successful debut on the World Cup circuit this year while George Murphy scored three more top 30 results in just his second season on the big stage.

At the Youth Winter Olympic Games in Korea, Lottie Lodge showed she is a star on the rise by winning the dual moguls silver medal. In a sign of the elite level of competition at YOG, the gold medallist would stand on the World Cup podium next to Jakara Anthony just seven weeks later.

In the men’s event, Edward Hill finished in ninth, while Lodge and Hill combined for seventh in the mixed dual moguls team.

At the Junior World Championships, Lucy Pernice finished 21st in singles and 23rd in dual moguls after earlier scoring her first two top 10 performances in Nor-Am Cup events.

AERIALS
Danielle Scott showed consistency is key in the race to the Crystal Globe, scoring podium appearances in five of six starts to go back-to-back in topping the Aerials World Cup standings. 

After starting her 2023/24 campaign with a second place finish at Ruka in Finland, she took out the US National Championships before standing on the World Cup podium three times in 10 days in North America.

Going into the last event of the season, Scott was 12 points behind American Winter Vinecki on the overall standings. She went on to qualify in second, and while Vinecki qualified in 10th, the race for the Crystal Globe was still alive.

However when weather intervened and qualification results were counted as final, Scott went to the front of the standings by 42 points to successfully defend her crown and join Laura Peel, Alisa Camplin and Jacqui Cooper with back-to-back Aerials Crystal Globes.

Australian women have now topped the Aerials World Cup standings for 13 of the last 26 years, including four of the last five.

Peel competed in just two World Cup events this year, finishing fourth at Ruka and third in Changchun, China.

Abbey Willcox returned to the World Cup circuit this season, scoring three top five finishes including bronze at Deer Valley, her first World Cup podium in nearly four years.

Airleigh Frigo kicked off the season in winning form, winning the FIS Freestyle Summer Grand Prix Series at the Geoff Henke Olympic Winter Training Centre in Brisbane while Willcox was second.

With a pair of silver medals at the opening two Grand Prix in Switzerland and USA, Peel was second on the overall Series standings.

Sidney Stephens, Miriana Perkins and Elise Coleiro all completed a training block in North America earlier this year, going into collectively score four top 10 results at Nor-Am Cup events.

Images courtesy OWIA