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Jakara Anthony’s dazzling turns and tricks have earned the Australian freestyle ski queen more World Cup moguls glory on the French mountain normally famed for its cycling champs.
On the slopes of l’Alpe d’Huez, Australia’s Olympic champion added the dual moguls title on Saturday (Sunday AEDT) to the moguls gold she had won 24 hours earlier as she continued her complete domination on the European circuit.
Anthony’s fourth World Cup win of the season was the highlight of another successful day for Australia’s winter sports stars, with Belle Brockhoff and Adam Lambert both racing to silvers, while Josie Baff took bronze, in the snowboard cross finals at the Italian resort of Cervinia.
That came after freestyle skier Laura Peel had taken bronze in the World Cup aerials event in Changchun, China.
Once again though, pride of place went to 25-year-old Anthony, who won her first dual moguls title since triumphing in Chiesa in Valmalenco 21 months ago.
While she has gone undefeated in moguls this season, with Friday’s victory being her third in successive weeks on the World Cup circuit, winning in the head-to-head contests of dual moguls has proved much more troublesome for the reigning World Cup champ Anthony.
Indeed, her only defeat all season had come in the semi-final of last weekend’s dual moguls in Sweden but on Saturday, she won each of her five duels fairly convincingly, ending with victory over American Olivia Giaccio in the Big Final by 20-15.
After five events in the overall moguls World Cup standings, Anthony is now on 460 points, 160 clear of Giaccio, while also moving to the top of the dual moguls discipline on 160 points, 40 ahead of Giaccio.
At Cervinia, Brockhoff and Baff pushed Swiss winner Sina Siegenthaler all the way in the six-woman final of the snowboard cross, with Brockhoff ending up just seven-hundredths of a second adrift with Baff another 0.21sec behind.
In the overall standings, the result pushed Melbourne’s Brockhoff to the top on 160 points alongside Frenchwoman Chloe Trespeuch, with Cooma’s Baff now fifth.
Jindabyne’s Lambert prompted a surprise by grabbing silver in the tightest of men’s finals, almost snatching the victory as he slid across the line fractionally behind Austrian winner Alessandro Haemmerle, who didn’t even realise he was there.
“It was super tight – you kind of had to survive out there,” Haemmerle said. “I was really surprised by Lambert. I knew I had someone on my right side, but I didn’t notice my left so I wasn’t sure until the end. I’m lucky to win this one.”
In Changchun, Peel grabbed the aerials bronze, scoring 80.96, behind American winner Winter Vinecki (94.25) and home favourite Fanyu Kong (81.42).
Peel’s teammate Danielle Scott came sixth but is still in second place in the overall standings, 12 points behind Vinecki while Peel is third a further 10 points adrift.
© AAP