Jakara Anthony, Olympic mogul skiing champion, wins Queen’s Birthday honours

Mogul skier Jakara Anthony, Australia’s only gold medallist at the 2022 Beijing Olympics – the nation’s sixth ever – has been featured in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours for her service to sport.

Olympic mogul skiing gold medallist Jakara Anthony has been honoured in the 2022 Queen's Birthday list. Picture: Tony Harrington/Supplied

Mogul skier Jakara Anthony, Australia’s only gold medallist at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics – the nation’s sixth-ever – has been honoured on this year’s Queen’s Birthday list for her service to sport.

“It’s such a massive, massive honour,” says the 23-year-old, who receives the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

“The people I’ve seen receive that award before me and who – I’m sure – I’ll be receiving it alongside, they’re such incredible and accomplished people.”

It’s her first morning back at Victoria’s snowy Mount Buller in more than two years, after the pandemic and related restrictions prevented her from returning to her home away from home.

Mount Buller is where her parents initially met as seasonal workers, where she started skiing as a four-year-old, where she trained in the clubs program, and where she met the coaches with whom she went to the Olympics.

And now she’s returned to her home ground as an Olympic champion – the prodigal daughter. “It is so special to come back to Mount Buller, where it all started,” she told The Australian. “It’s going to be really exciting to get to share all this success with them for the first time.

“The snow community, it’s something very special … I can’t walk anywhere without seeing someone I know and having a little catch-up. There’re a lot of people who have been a part of (my journey) from back when I was a four-year-old skiing here at Mount Buller, and they’re still involved in it today.”

Australian freestyle skier and Olympic gold medallist Jakara Anthony. Picture: Tony Harrington

Anthony stunned audiences at the Beijing Games, winning the women’s mogul freestyle skiing event with a healthy edge.

It was her second time competing in the Olympics – she made her debut at PyeongChang in 2018, where she ­narrowly missed a podium finish, coming fourth in the competition.

She also won two Crystal Globes – the top prize – at the 2021-22 Alpine Ski World Cup in the overall mogul and dual mogul categories.

Anthony takes pride in knowing she’s “truly homegrown”, unlike many other winter sports athletes who seek better-funded training facilities overseas.

After her time in the Mount Buller clubs program, she went to the Australian Mogul Skiing Academy, then to the NSW Institute of Sport, and then to the Olympic Winter Institute.

A video filmed just before she competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics shows Anthony practising jumps off a plastic ramp into a muddy, brown reservoir in Lilydale, Victoria, which hosts a vibrant local ecosystem including leeches and a turtle – “a cool little dude”, she recalls.

“A couple of years ago that was our only facility in Australia … We like to say it’s character building.”

Anthony is known for her brand of fierce determination and simmering confidence, but she is also very aware of the humbling role she now plays as an example for younger athletes.

“It’s so, so special and it’s been so rewarding. One of the coolest parts about this whole journey.”

She says she has paused her undergraduate studies in exercise and sports science at Deakin University to focus on her training.

“We’ve got world championships coming up. Milano Cortina Olympics in 2026,” she said.

“I want to continue to push the women’s side of the sport in particular.”