Cowan and Turner lead ski cross charge at Junior Worlds
Published Mon 23 Mar 2026
Australia’s emerging ski cross athletes have delivered encouraging results at the 2026 FIS Ski Cross Junior World Championships in St Moritz, Switzerland, with Duncan Cowan and Dakota Turner both earning top 10 results.
Cowan, 19, qualified in 12th and showed strong form across the knockout rounds, winning his 1/8 final before placing second in his quarter-final to guarantee a top eight result.
A fourth-place finish in his semi-final saw Cowan move into the Small Final, where he placed third to secure seventh overall.
The result marks Cowan’s best performance at a Junior World Championships, improving on his ninth-place finish in 2025 and 35th in 2023.
A flag-bearer for Australia at the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, Cowan arrived in St Moritz in strong form as the reigning Australia New Zealand Cup and Nor-Am Cup champion, and after recording his first career European Cup top-10 result earlier this month.
In the women’s event, Dakota Turner produced a similarly impressive performance to finish eighth.
Like her Youth Olympic teammate Cowan, Turner also qualified 12th and progressed cleanly through the early rounds, finishing second in both her 1/8 final and quarter-final to reach the top eight.
A third-place finish in her semi-final saw the 19-year-old advance to the Small Final, where she placed fourth to secure eighth overall, an improvement on her 13th-place result in 2025.
Ellie Coomber, 18, and Charlotte Coomber, 19, were both competing at their first Junior World Championships and made it through qualifying to lock in 1/8 final starts.
Ellie qualified 25th and finished 26th, while older sister Charlotte qualified 28th and finished 28th after both were eliminated in the first knockout round.
The sisters entered the championships off the back of strong results in Chile last year, where Ellie was fourth overall in the South American Cup standings and Charlotte placed second.
Australia also contested the mixed team event, with Cowan and Turner combining to finish 11th after placing third in their quarter-final behind Sweden and the United States.
