Bronze for Britt makes it four podiums out of five

Courtesy www.owia.org

Britt Cox continues to deliver her best every week in this year’s Mogul Skiing World Cup season, bringing home the bronze from Deer Valley in Utah and retaining her number one world ranking.

Her bronze medal in Deer Valley adds to three previous golds this season (Ruka, Lake Placid and Calgary) highlighting an exceptional achievement, having now been on the podium in four out of five World Cups and 5th in the one World Cup in which she didn’t medal (Val St Come).   

Cox dominated the qualifying round of 33 women, maintaining the high execution level, by the talented and dedicated NSWIS athlete.

Going into the finals Britt said the course was in good shape, and, “Classic Deer Valley - which is always great.”

In the first final for the top 16, Britt was joined by development NSWIS skier Jakara Anthony who had qualified for the final with a PB seventh place, but was then unable to make the top six medal round.

Cox qualified for the medal final and claimed bronze behind Canadian Justine Dufour-Lapointe and winner, Morgan Schild from the USA.

“I’m so excited with my podium here in Deer Valley tonight. Many people call this event the Super Bowl of Freestyle skiing and it’s my favourite stop on the World Cup tour, ” Britt said.

“I’m yet to see the scores but I think I made a mistake on the top jump that may have cost me the top spot tonight but that’s something I’ll be working on over the next few days.”

“My entire family and extended family are here and that makes it even more special.”

Coach Steve Desovich was happy with his athletes saying video review will continue to help with fine tuning.

“Britt skied well today with the exception of a few small errors,” Desovich said.

“She was able to produce a good performance over three runs and I am sure that she will learn a lot after we review the video and apply those lessons to the next competition opportunity, which is dual moguls here on Saturday.”

Matt Graham, coming off his win last week in Calgary, is consistently remains near the podium with a fourth place, very narrowly missing third place.

Coming through qualifying in third, Graham then finished second in the final 16, and in the medal super final scored 79.18 points, but was just behind Canadian Phillipe Marquis who pipped him for the bronze with 79.76 points.

"Overall today was quite a success," Matt said after the event. 

"I am happy to have put down three solid runs in the qualifications and the two final rounds. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to be up on the podium which is a little disappointing."

"I made a couple of errors in my super final run which cost me. I feel like I am skiing strong and with confidence so I plan to take that into duals on Saturday."

The coaches are happy.

“We are very pleased with Matt's performance here. Jerry and I thought that he executed quite well overall. It will be good to re-examine the video to see what needs to be done moving forward,” Coach Steve Desovich said.

Australia fielded a large moguls squad in Deer Valley. Other results in the men included NSWIS Skiers James Matheson (30th), Brodie Summers (35th), Rohan Chapman-Davies (37th) and Cooper Woods-Topalovic (DNF).

In the women’s, NSWIS skier Jakara Anthony who is heading to the Asian Winter Games later this month continues improving, qualifying  seventh, then a final placing of 14th.

Other women to compete were Madi Himbury who qualified in 17th and was unlucky to miss the first final, Claudia Gueli (21st), Nicole Parks (24th) and Krystle Yin (26th).