Australian mogul skier Matt Graham collected his second World Cup medal of the season in Val St Come, Canada, this morning (Australian time).
The 20-year-old Olympic Winter Institute of Australia/NSW Institute of Sport skier added a silver medal to another second place achieved in the United States about a month ago.
Graham’s medal enhances a highly successful season for Australian winter sport athletes who have captured nine medals in World Cups and World Championships.
Canadian Mikael Kingsbury won today’s event ahead of Russian Alexandr Smyshlyaev in the bronze medal position.
Graham said he thought the quality of his performance today was even stronger than the silver medal in the United States a month ago due to better consistency across the entire day.
“In Deer Valley I was a little shaky in the earlier rounds and then pulled it all together for the super final whereas here I was more consistent across the board,” Graham said.
He believes that “consistency” holds the key to his continued climb up the rankings towards achieving the best results he is capable of.
And it is not just consistency within each event that is critical. It is compiling consistency throughout an entire season that he is also striving for.
“This year has been a little up and down,” he admitted. “Coming here I was pretty determined to get a good result and put down a good performance. That has been the focus all week.
“I have been putting down good runs in training and I wanted to make sure I transferred that into competition performances.
“The two days of training set me up really well for today. Today I felt really confident. I thought I was skiing really well.”
Apart from consistency Graham, who was seventh in last year’s Olympic Winter Games in Russia, also sees a need to further increase the level of difficulty with his aerial acrobatics.
Graham has worked tirelessly with OWIA head coach Steve Desovich, strength and conditioning coach John Marsden and moguls skiing aerial coach Jerry Grossi, to bring about a significant improvement on where he was 12 months ago.
With just one more event before the end of their season, Japan at the end of the month, Desovich is already planning an intensive off season training plan for Graham and his other charges, to build Australia’s growing credibility in moguls skiing.
Desovich said that Graham will spend a lot more time in water jump training compared with previous off seasons.
“The biggest difference between now and 12 months ago is that Matt has upped the degree of difficulty with his jumps,” Desovich said.
“He now has an air package which is competitive with the upper field. Of course it is ongoing and there are a lot of skills which are incomplete still.
“We are in continuous discussion with his off season. As excited as we are about his performance he can get a lot better.
“With jumps for instance, there are some specific things he needs to work on that require a lot of water ramp time.
“We are aiming for 60 days of off season ramp training for Matt to bring his skills up to that level, which is comparable with the top guys.”
In Switzerland overnight (Australian time), ski cross athletes Anton Grimus and Sami Kennedy-Sim clinched two top 10 finishes in Arosa.
Grimus improved his 17th placing from 24 hours earlier on day one of the fifth round of World Cup season by qualifying in fourth fastest time, winning his first knock out final and quarter final , before finishing in third place in the semi-finals and the consolation final.
Grimus was unlucky to miss a spot in the final after he was edged out of second place in a photo finish that took a considerable amount of time to separate second and third places.
The strong performance saw Grimus finish in seventh overall, his best result for the season, while his OWIA/NSWIS teammate, Kennedy-Sim, was 10th.
The women’s event was won by Swiss skier Fanny Smith, with Swede Anna Holmlund second and Russian Sofia Smirnova in third.
Sweden’s Victor Oehling Norberg won the men’s ahead of Russian Sergey Ridzik and German Daniel Bohnacker in second and third.
“All in all I was pretty happy with the result,” Grimus said. “It’s good to see that things are moving in the right direction.”
Kennedy-Sim said she was aiming to better her eighth place from day one, however, “I’ll take a top 10 whenever I can get one.”
“This is both disappointing and motivating. I’m now looking forward to Are (Sweden) and putting it down on a different track,” Kennedy-Sim said.
The Arosa event was the second of six races in three weeks. The squad now journeys to Sweden for next weekend’s event.
