By Billie Eder
Barwon Heads doesn’t get any snow.
So it’s hard to believe this small coastal town on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula has produced one of Australia’s greatest winter athletes.
But it’s where freestyle skiing superstar Jakara Anthony – who just won her 13th world cup gold medal in the 2024 season – spent her formative years, commuting with her family to the slopes of Mount Buller from the age of four.
Anthony’s world cup win in Kazakhstan on Saturday makes her the most successful moguls skier ever in a single season, and although she might not be a household name, the 25-year-old is an Olympic gold medallist and the current world No. 1.
Anthony’s first exposure to moguls was during interschool sport trips, and at 11 years old she joined the Team Buller Riders’ mogul program. Just two-years later in 2012, she was offered a position on the Australian Development Ski Team, and in 2015, aged 16, she made her world cup debut in Deer Valley, Utah.
Her first top-10 world cup finish came in 2017, when she placed ninth at the Tazawako event in Japan. Later that year she made her first Asian Winter Games appearance, where she finished 6th in the women’s moguls and was the closing ceremony flag-bearer for Australia.
Anthony’s real breakout year came in 2018, when she made her Olympic debut in PyeongChang. Anthony finished fourth overall, and it was a springboard for the 2018-19 world cup season, where she won six medals across the season, including her first gold medal at Lake Placid, USA.
The pandemic years, although disruptive, were successful for the young Australian, who won gold, silver and bronze world cup medals across the single and dual moguls events.
At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Anthony became Australia’s first Winter Olympic champion in 12 years, and just the sixth Australian to win a gold medal at the Winter Games. The last person to do it was Lydia Lassila at the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
Since the 2022 Olympics, Anthony has gone from strength to strength, and she finished the season ranked as the overall moguls champion.
Gold medallist Jakara Anthony.Credit: Maddie Meyer/ Getty Images
Her victory in the dual moguls on Saturday came a day after her win in the moguls, and ensured Anthony will take home all three crystal globes as overall moguls champion, as well as discipline winner in both the singles format and dual moguls for the 2024 season.
It was her sixth dual moguls win of the season, to go with seven singles. A measure of her superiority was that she now leads American Jaelin Kauf in the season’s standings in the duals by a massive 176 points.
Anthony has the chance to surpass her already incredible world cup achievement in Italy next week, when she takes part in dual moguls in the final leg of the 2024 season.
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