Latest news with #FISfreestyle
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Aussie skier Graham crashes then becomes record breaker
Freestyle skier Matt Graham has become Australia's most successful world championship winter sports athlete by winning a record-breaking fifth medal in the dual moguls, but he had to do it the painful way in St Moritz. The battle-hardened 30-year-old from Gosford, who suffered a dreadful crash less than two weeks ago in Italy that sent him to hospital, again took another spectacular tumble during Friday's accident-strewn showpiece event at the Swiss resort. Competing in his semi-final against the eventual champion, Canadian great Mikael Kingsbury, Graham was giving it his all as ever when he lost a ski at high speed and ended up cartwheeling down the course. The dads did it again—this time on the biggest stage!World Champs podium in St. Moritz: Mikaël Kingsbury, Ikuma Horishima, and Matt Graham. Experience, grit, and pure class from start to finish. Time to celebrate!#fisfreestyle #fismoguls #wintersport #engadin2025 — FISfreestyle (@FISfreestyle) March 21, 2025 Battered but then forced to compete in the 'Small Final' for the bronze against Filip Gravenfors, it became a survival of the fitness because his Swedish opponent had also crashed heavily in his semi-final. But while the injured Gravenfors couldn't continue after pushing out of the gate, Graham managed to complete the course on his own to take his landmark medal. It was his fifth gong in all - three in dual moguls and two in moguls - spread across four championships over six years, taking him past snowboarder Scotty James, who can match him again with his own fifth next week in St Moritz. "It was probably one of the hardest earned podiums of my career" admitted Graham, who less than a week ago was vomiting blood and nursing bruised lungs after the crash on the 2026 Olympic course in Livigno. "Not knowing if I would be able to compete, to keep skiing the way I did today and get down the run, then having a big crash in the semi-final against Mikael, rattled everything a little bit. "Heading into the Small Final I didn't know what state Filip was in. He is a crazy duals skier, I was in a lot of pain myself and just wanted to get down the run and be in one piece, so I was just willing to ski my run and whatever happened, happened. "I was in shock to be honest when I crossed the line, so I broke down a little and got a bit emotional." Graham had won his early rounds of the 'dual' event in which skiers try to outdo each other with high-tariff aerial manoeuvres at high speed on adjacent slopes, beating Sweden's Robin Olgaard 19-16 in the round of 16, and Britain's Mateo Jeannesson 23-12 in the quarter-finals. But things turned wild in the semis, especially when both Ikuma Horishima and Gravenfors crashed in their race, with the Japanese advancing to the gold-medal match with Kingsbury. But Horishima was in no shape to give of his best in the final as Kingsbury won his fourth straight dual moguls crown. Among the rest of the Australian team, Cooper Woods came eighth, Jackson Harvey 18th and George Murphy 23rd, while in the women's event won by American Jaelin Kauf, Charlotte Wilson was 15th and Emma Bosco 17th. New Zealand's Australian-born Olympic champion Zoi Sadowski-Synnott added a third world gold medal to her snowboard slopestyle title collection, while Canada's Liam Brearley won the equivalent men's title.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Graham's brave bid for world moguls medal falls short
Freestyle skier Matt Graham's courageous quest to win another world championship moguls medal has fallen short in Switzerland, as the evergreen Australian star had to settle for fifth place. Hardly in his finest shape after a crash in Livigno, Italy, a week-and-a-half ago resulted in the 30-year-old suffering bruised lungs, four-time medallist Graham showed real heart in his determination to compete in the St Moritz showpiece. But after a superb effort in Tuesday's qualifying and Wednesday's final, Gosford's Graham, who had been left vomiting blood in his painful build-up to St Moritz following the crash, could only finish fifth as Japan's Ikuma Horishima was crowned the new king of the moguls. Perrine Laffont does it again! 🔥 Coming into the 2025 World Champs as the reigning double World Champion, she put down her best skiing to defend her title from 2023 and claim her career's 6th World Champs gold! 🏆⛷️ #fisfreestyle #fismoguls #wintersport #engadin2025 — FISfreestyle (@FISfreestyle) March 19, 2025 The top four skiers were well ahead of the rest of the field, with Horishima (89.03 points) ending the reign of the great Canadian Mikael Kingsbury (82.68), the most successful moguls skier in history, who had been gunning for a fourth-straight title by a comfortable 6.35-point margin. Graham's 74.84 finals run wasn't enough to match Korean bronze medalist Daeyoon Jung (81.76) nor American Nick Page (80.77) but represented a remarkable effort from the Australian, a 2018 Olympic silver medallist who'd also won world championship silver in 2023 and bronze in 2019 in this event. Graham's teammate Cooper Woods finished ninth. In the equivalent women's event on Wednesday, Australia's Olympic champion Jakara Anthony, who's been out of action after breaking her collarbone in a fall in December, was absent. But Perrine Laffont, the main threat to Anthony's Olympic ambitions next year, showed just why as she won her third straight world moguls gold. The brilliant Frenchwoman, who also won in 2021 and 2023 as well as having three dual moguls titles to her name, took the gold in 77.92, while Hinako Tomitaka, of Japan, took silver (75.15) and Canada's Maia Schwinghammer bronze (74.92). Laffont had enjoyed a sabbatical in 2024 while Anthony swept all before her, and they're set to enjoy a fierce rivalry going into next year's Milan-Cortina Winter Games. Charlotte Wilson, the 20-year-old Australian who recently stunned the sport by winning the dual moguls on the Olympic course in Livigno in just her 10th World Cup start, couldn't match that extraordinary effort as she finished seventh in the final (54.27). The big disappointment for the Australian team's challenge came in the ski slopestyle as Abi Harrigan, who'd won a surprise maiden silver medal in a World Cup event in the French resort of Tignes at the weekend, failed to make the final from Wednesday's qualifying rounds.
