Fifth Moguls Gold for Britt Cox at Olympic test event

Britt Cox has continued her dominant World Cup season by winning her fifth World Cup gold medal at the home of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Her 81.66 point final round victory at Bokwang Park last night made more significant as the competition doubled as the official Test Event for next year’s Games which 22-year-old Cox is hoping will be her third Olympic appearance.

For Cox, her first time racing in Asia could not have been more picture perfect.

She topped both the qualifying round (81.83) and the first final (82.71) before tying the competition off in a neat package with an unwavering performance in the super final.

“I love having the day where it’s nice and tidy,” Cox said after the medal ceremony.

“I am really stoked to have put down three consistent runs and to do the things that I wanted to do from my video yesterday. I’m absolutely ecstatic to finish today on top.”

Last night’s victory adds to her collection of silverware off the back of gold in the dual moguls and bronze in the moguls at the Deer Valley World Cup last weekend in Utah.

The Victorian athlete has now medaled at six of the seven events this season, with two World Cups remaining in February and the World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain in March.

“I am really happy with this season. Obviously it has been my best to date, and I think really that I am just doing the skiing that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now.

“To be successful consistently you have to be excellent at the basics, and from working on that over the years, that is now paying off for me in my competition.”

Silver and bronze in the women’s event went to Canadian skiers Justine Dufour-Lapointe and Andi Naude with scores of 78.35 and 78.16 respectively. Cox keeps the number one world cup series ranking and increases her lead for the end-of-season title to 171 points over Dufour-Lapointe. 

Teammate Matt Graham was the only other Australian to qualify for the finals on the Olympic track. His score of 82.25 in the men’s super final secured Graham sixth place overall.

The 22-year-old felt he put down a solid run, but was disappointed he didn’t quite make it onto the podium.
“Overall I was pretty happy with how I skied, I felt pretty good on the course,” Graham said.

“I would have liked to have been a few spots higher, so next week I’ll just fix a few things up and put down some cleaner runs and hopefully the results will come through.”

Both Cox and Graham said they relished their first taste of the Olympic venue.

“It’s a plain vanilla course,” Cox said.

“There is nothing really out of the ordinary with it, which all the athletes love because it means that you’re not spending time trying to figure out the course; you‘re just skiing the run the best you can and having a lot of fun out there.”

“The course is really awesome and it’s a really cool stadium,” added Graham.

“I feel very comfortable on the course and around the village here, so pretty keen to get back here in 12 months-time.”

Other Australian results at Bokwang Park are: Ladies – Jakara Anthony (21st), Claudia Gueli (28th), Madi Himbury (34th) and Krystle Yin (37th). Men – Brodie Summers (19th), James Matheson (21st) and Rohan Chapman-Davies (45th).

Article courtesy of OWIA