ANC moguls tour back in action at Perisher and Mt Buller

It was a couple of extremely exciting days for all moguls fans on the other side of the globe with Australia’s top venues at Perisher and Mt Buller hosting a series of Continental Cup competitions between August 31 and September 3.

Mogul national champs bring opportunity to up-and-coming skiers

Seventy seven athletes competed in the Moguls Australian Championships at Perisher Ski Resort on Wednesday, in what was the first national championships since 2019, before the COVID pandemic.

Toppa’s Run welcomed athletes from Australia, Japan, Great Britain, USA, The Netherlands, Korea and Austria for what was originally planned to be a two-day event.

However, after heavy rain, wind and fog descended on the course on Tuesday after a handful of training runs, the competition was postponed for the day and moved to Wednesday where two singles moguls events were held back-to-back.

Olympic silver medallist Matt Graham led the charge in both men’s events winning two gold medals. Australia’s Harvey Jackson won silver in Event 1, with Japan’s Shota Hirayama winning bronze. Hirayama eleventated to silver in Event 2, with his teammate Kosuke Sugimoto in third.

Both women’s events were dominated by Anri Kawamura from Japan, winning back to back golds. The Japanese had a full sweep of the podium in Event 1 with Rino Yanagimoto in silver and Haruka Nakao in bronze. Austria’s Avital Carroll won silver in Event 2 with Nakao securing her second bronze medal.

The Moguls Nationals provided an ideal competition opportunity for Australia’s Emerging Talent Program (ETP) athletes, recently inducted NSWIS Scholarship holders and Australian Mogul Academy skiers to put all their season’s training into practice and test themselves against their Aussie teammates and international rivals.

For 16-year-old Kareema Wakim, after coming back from a season-ending injury, she said competing in her debut Australian Championships alongside her teammates has a great experience

“This is my first season in Perisher, I was meant to do last season but I fractured both my heels on the second training day and the season before that I had covid, so I’ve missed the last two seasons,” the Australian Mogul Academy athlete said.

“So the highlight is to be here training and competing with everyone, and being back with my teammates is really good.

“I’ve learnt a lot coming back from my injury, so I am stoked to be here… today has been good, the course has held up pretty well and it’s good to get two top to bottoms.”

In the men’s events, 16-year-old Australian Moguls Academy athlete Mac Livissianos said he’s also enjoying being back on snow for the first full season in a few years.

Livissianos’ best result at the 2019 national championships was 35th place, and he said he’s stoked to have made major improvements during training this season to elevate his results to 21st and 28th in the championships week.

“It’s been a really good season, hitting goals has been awesome and sending it on the mogul course out here,” he said.

“The highlight of the season has been getting my first Cork 1080 on snow a few weeks ago.

“The course was a bit solid this morning which was a bit scary, but it’s softened up really nicely to make it easier to ski, even though it is a really challenging course. The jumps are really fun, really kicky, and it’s a lot of fun out here today.”

See all results from the 2022 Australian Moguls Championships HERE

Matt Graham chalks up 7th ABOM Mogul Challenge victory, Avital Caroll wins her first title at Mt Buller

The return of the ABOM Mogul Challenge to Mt Buller yesterday was a display of dazzling bumps skiing with an impressive international and local line up thrilled to be back on the Chamois course.

Familiar faces and newcomers were cheered enthusiastically by the spellbound crowd who lined the course all afternoon and into a chilly night rubbing shoulders with plenty of Olympic, World Cup and emerging talent.

The blisteringly dual finals saw the top tier go head to head down the 197 metre course in just 20 seconds, squeezing in two spectacular aerial jumps between high speed bump sections.

The highlight of the night was Matt Graham dominating the course and the competition to take home his 7th ABOM trophy – the most titles in the history of the event, followed by Nick Cleaver who has five in his collection.

Austrian Avital Carrol beat out a strong stable of Japanese skiers to secure her first ABOM title.

Matt reflected on the win at the bottom of the course saying, “I was up against Kosuke Sugimoto and he’s one of the best skiers in the world so I just had to send it and it all came together in my last run.

"It’s great to be competing again at Mt Buller under lights, it’s the second time we’ve done this and it’s pretty special to be able to it here in Australia. I’m coming back from an injury and getting back into training and loving the sport again, having a lot of fun.”
 
Avital summed up her experience taking out top place on the women’s podium, “It was super fast, super fun, charging all the time and kind of terrifying and super exciting at the same time!”

Event director Andrew Pattison was delighted to have the community back together, “This is the fun event that the athletes look forward to, it’s great to be back.”

101 athletes competed over the divisions which included open, youth and masters and Mt Buller showed the international mogul community the passion and energy the resort has for the sport beamed via a live-stream from the course.

Full results from the ABOM Mogul Challenge at Mt Buller are available HERE and HERE

Photos by: Mark Ashkanasy, Peter Murphy & Mt Buller

Source: Snow Australia