Matt Graham wins bronze at the FIS World Cup in Thaiwoo, China, just 24 hours after he won silver on the same course.
Graham finished fourth in the qualification round of 64 men with 78.88 points, then upped his game in the first final with 80.92 points, placing fifth and making it into the final six.
Again, Graham found more in the medal round – scoring 82.96 in a burning run, which landed him on the podium for the second time in two days.
“I think today went really well actually,” Graham said after the medal presentations.
“I felt a little better this morning, had a good sleep last night. Kind of came out firing in the qualification run and put down a run that I was really happy with.”
“Pretty solid run in the final 1 round – slightly drifted my jumps though, which cost me a little bit so I was going into the Super Final in fifth place and I really had to put it all on the line and not make any mistakes.”
“To come away with back to back podiums here in Thaiwoo is pretty awesome and I’m just really happy with the way I bounced back after the first event in Ruka.”
“The stats are nice but at the end of the day we’ve got bigger things coming up – so we’ve just got to focus on each day and trying to get better.”
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The day undoubtedly belonged to Canadian World number 1, Mikael Kinsgbury who won gold yesterday and again today with a blistering run scoring 85.94. Silver went to Dmirty Reikard from Kazakhstan.
NSWIS athletes Rohan Chapman-Davies and James Matheson both missed out on the 16-man final, placing 20th and 32nd respectively during qualifications. A fall by Cooper Woods-Topalovic during the qualification run relegated the 17-year-old to 58th place.
2017 World Champion and Crystal Globe winner Britt Cox rebounded from yesterday’s place and disappointment by progressing to the Super Final and finishing 4th.
“I’m really happy to turn things around after some mistakes yesterday and get back up there and be able to ski in the Super Final again,” an upbeat Cox said today.
“I definitely feel like there’s some work to do but happy with the result today.”
“Yesterday I had some good training in the morning but made some mistakes in my qualification run so that really cost me and it meant that I had to go home early and didn’t get to ski in the finals, which was quite disappointing for me.”
“But the team did really well as a whole yesterday for Australia and the team vibes were really positive, so I chose to draw on that energy and put everything into competing well today and having a more solid performance.”
“That’s the beauty of having a two-day event where you do have an opportunity the next day and you don’t have to wait for the next week,” Cox said.
The Australian mogul skiers will head to North America for Christmas, but will continue to train.
“We will have a break over Christmas and New Year’s and spend time training in Colorado. I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to making some adjustments before the first World Cup of the new year in Calgary
Sochi Olympian Taylah O’Neill, placed 17th in the qualifier, missing the by just 0.10 points behind South Korean Jung Hwa Seo. Jakara Anthony finished 21st, Claudia Gueli 23rd and Krystle Yin 28th. Madii Himbury wasn’t far behind taking 32nd place while Sophie Ash finished 33rd in a field of 48 women.
