How Jakara Anthony Became The Most Successful Moguls Skier In A Single Season

With the dream of winning an Olympic gold medal,

Jukara Anthony decided as a teenager that she would ski full time.

By 2022, she recorded the most successful season

by an Australian winter sports athlete in history in the moguls.

At the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing,

Jukara won every round of the competition

to become just Australia's sixth ever winter gold medalist

and the first since Lydia Lassela in 2010.

At the 2023-24 World Cup season,

she won an incredible 14 World Cup events,

which is the most ever by a mogul skier in a single season.

I absolutely loved hearing more about the way Jukara prepares to perform.

For her, it's not about the podiums and the records.

It's about challenging what is possible,

not only for her, but for women and the sport as a whole.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Jukara, welcome to The Female Athlete.

The Female Athlete Project.

Thank you.

Super exciting to be here.

I think we've been talking about this for a while now.

Yes.

Yeah, so I first met you at the FIFA Women's World Cup.

It was quite cool.

I was sitting with a few athletes and I spied you on the other side of the aisle

and it was really cool to meet you and have a bit of a chat.

I've been a fan from afar from a long time,

so it's been cool to see you a couple of times.

So I'm excited that we've lined this one up.

Yeah, back at you.

Seeing you guys at the World Cup, that was super special.

Made it a really fun night.

It was very, very fun.

And so you're back up.

You're not really home.

Sort of.

You're in Sydney, so it was cool.

I saw you on the Channel 9 show on Wide World of Sports on the weekend,

so we were like, while you're here, let's make this happen.

How does it feel being back home on Australian soil?

Not home, home yet, but Australian soil.

Australian soil is close enough for me.

It's so good being home.

We were on the road for about four months, I think.

Yeah, we came home for one week.

I landed like 9.30 p.m. Christmas Day and had a week.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

So I've literally –

This year, slept in my bed for three nights now.

It's not a lot, is it?

No, so I'll take Sydney.

Yeah, nice.

Very nice.

What was Christmas Day like?

Did you do presents when you landed?

Well, by the time I got home, it was 11.30.

I'm like straight to bed.

Yeah.

You know, we got a Christmas turkey meal on the plane and they had wreaths up on the plane,

so a little interesting experience.

Very nice.

Something new.

Because how does it work season-wise in the lead up to Christmas?

Do you get much of a break?

So this season, it ran a little longer.

We had four locations before Christmas with seven starts and the last event was on the

23rd of December in Georgia, in Europe, hence getting back late Christmas Day.

And then there's usually a bit of a gap to the next World Cup.

We had about a month this time, so we had time to come home, but it kind of depends

every year if it's a long enough gap to come home because we still need to go back overseas

and train before the next competition.

Okay.

You can't just go in cold.

Well, you could, but I think it's a recipe for success.

Yeah.

You don't go 14 from 16 if you go in cold.

I don't think so.

We're going to get to that, but can you take us back to Jakara as a little kid and describe

what she was like?

I was a pretty wild little kid.

I looked very rogue half the time and pretty sure I barely even wore clothes until I was

like 10 or something.

Lived a pretty free lifestyle.

We traveled a lot as a family.

We spent a lot of time as a family, so obviously very important to me.

I was born up in Cairns.

And then we moved back to Victoria when I was about nine months old, lived in the outer

suburbs of Melbourne and moved to Barwon Heads where I now live when I was about three years

old and so been there ever since.

So that's surf coasting Victoria.

Absolutely love the beach.

All our holidays when I was younger were beach, beach, beach.

Yeah.

Just couldn't get enough of it.

Mom and dad are very disappointed I'm not a pro surfer.

They're like, just want to go to warm destinations, but that's okay.

So yeah, just loved getting outdoors, doing any activities.

And then my mom and dad, they actually met way back at Mount Buller in Victoria, one of

the ski resorts.

So that's kind of how the whole skiing thing started.

They were just seasonal workers at the time.

I think dad was driving taxis, mom was running lifts, something along those lines.

And then when they had my brother and I, I got a younger brother, he's like 15 months

younger than me.

So we're pretty close.

We kind of look like we could be twins also.

So when they had us, they decided we'd go up to Mount Buller for the season.

They'd put us in local primary school on the hill.

And they would work up there and we'd go skiing as a family.

And that was kind of intention behind that was that it was a sport that we would be able

to do as a family together forever.

Like we can still go and ski as a family.

So it's pretty special that they've given us that.

So they feel a bit sad that you're not a pro surfer, but they kind of like brought it upon

themselves by putting you into that environment.

Yeah, I don't think they ever thought it was going to go this far.

Their intention always was after primary school, I'd just go to high school full time.

We'd maybe go up some weekends.

And that would be it.

But when I was about year five, year six, I convinced them to let me train full time.

So I would actually ski nearly every day of the week and do homeschool instead of going

to the school up there.

So plans changed a little bit at that point.

But yeah, they were super grateful for the opportunity that they gave me and they bought

into what I was asking for.

How did the homeschool process go?

Oh, it was a little bumpy.

My school back home was really good and they were able to just send me up work for my core

school units and I'd do it and come back and give them what I had completed.

Oftentimes wasn't as much as they were expecting.

And then later on when I was doing my, so VCE, it is in Victoria, year 11, year 12, I did

distance education.

And then for year 12, I actually went to school for the whole year.

So that was the only year that I did the whole thing.

I still missed like two weeks at the start, but I'm counting it.

Yeah, I reckon you should.

Yeah.

How does a 10 year old, year five, 10, 11 year old.

Yeah.

Make a decision that you want to train full time.

Yeah, it's a bit of a weird one.

So we're pretty lucky in winter sport.

We've got an event into school snow sports.

So you get to go and compete against all the other school kids in your state and then the

country if you get through the next round and you can try every sport.

So I did Alpine, ski across, moguls, cross country.

I did all the snowboard disciplines, like absolutely everything I could.

And moguls was just the one that I really loved.

I think I liked that there were so many different aspects to it that you could be working on.

Cause I'm a major perfectionist, so it gives me a lot to go away and work on, um, gates

and stuff in Alpine didn't quite do it for me, but yeah, moguls just really stood out

to me and I had a little bit of success at the inter school level.

And then I was like, all right, I want to go train with the club program, which is team

Buller riders at Mount Buller.

And they trained just for freestyle skiing, which is what moguls comes under.

So went through that.

And then at those bigger competitions, I got to see our national team training, competing,

and then eventually.

In 2010, I would have been about 11 years old, was the Vancouver winter Olympics.

And I saw Brit Cox competing there as a 15 year old.

And I was really lucky later on to get to be on the team alongside Britain, travel and

train with her.

And she was just one of my idols growing up in such a great role model for me and seeing her

there.

I was like, that's what I'm going to do.

So that's kind of where it started.

Not quite sure what I was thinking at the time.

It's a bit of an odd one, but yeah, I'm pretty happy with the outcome of following that.

That's really cool.

I want to get into that and what your teenage years looked like, but what was it like returning

to school for year 12?

Like even from a social perspective for someone who'd not been in that environment was, was

it hard to adapt to?

I think I was pretty used to coming and going by that point.

So it was pretty probably weirder for me to be there the whole year and weirder for all

my friends and stuff to have me around all the time.

It was a really fun year.

I'm getting to actually go to a lot of milestone events, you know, a lot of 18th, a lot of

birthday parties, a lot of family events that I'm using.

Yeah.

That's usually missing.

So that was really special and that would be my favorite part about going to school

for that year.

I did miss out on a lot of training and competition opportunities, but I think in the long run

it didn't affect me too much.

Thankfully, I came out of that year and headed into the season and had a really successful

season results wise, but my body wasn't coping quite well with the training, didn't have

that training load during the year.

So paid a little bit for that, but we got all on top of it.

And in the long run, it probably worked out well, got on top of a lot of deficits.

I had because they would become so obvious.

So, you know, maybe good, maybe bad.

Who knows?

You picked moguls.

Can you explain for people who may have watched moguls, but don't actually understand how

it works?

Can you break it down for the listeners?

Yeah.

So moguls is all those bumps in the snow that you see.

So our run is manufactured though.

So it's a little neater than what you would be skiing if you went off piste as public.

So there's a one section of moguls and then we have a jump straight into a really long,

really long section of moguls, one more jump, and then one more short section of moguls.

So that's the mogul run.

And then we're a judge sport.

So 60% of our score comes from how we're skiing those moguls, the turns, we call them.

And then 20% will come from our jumps and it's how hard the jump is and how well we do it.

And then the last 20% of our score comes from the time, which is they have a formula to work

out a time you should ski the course in and depending on where you are in relation to that is

how you get your points.

Yeah.

Is the formula related to the difficulty of the jump or it's just, it's for all of

you, it's the same formula.

So for your jumps, you, the judges will watch whatever it is you're doing, decide how good

it is out of 10.

They've got a process for that.

But then whatever your jump, whatever jump you did, there's a degree of difficulty, which

your score out of 10 gets times by to get your final score.

Okay.

So if you're doing a high degree of difficulty, you're going to end up with a higher score

than a lower.

Yeah.

Got you.

But you still need to do it well.

Yes.

That's an important part of it.

That is key.

Was there someone throughout that time, like once you decided that you wanted to do it

full time and had this goal and you watch Britt Cox, who really nurtured your talent

and coached you, how did you go to competing on the world stage?

It's a fair journey, that one.

Very lucky to have had my parents supported along the way, you know, allowing me to go

and train internationally and making a family holiday out of it so that it was possible

and making sure that I was able to keep skiing in Australia.

But I was able to progress through.

So I got a scholarship with the New South Wales Institute of Sport when I was 13, 14.

And that gave me opportunities to work with the national team.

And then I would go on camps overseas eventually with a program called the Australian Mogul

Skiing Academy, which is run by my now coach, Pete McNeill and Kate Blamey back when it

started, who also coaches me.

So Pete and Kate, I've actually worked with on and off since I was about 12 years old

because they were coaching club level at that time.

So we've actually gone through the whole journey together.

Which is really unique and special.

So then when I was about, oh, I've been competing internationally since I was about 12.

But when I was about 15, 16, I got my first World Cup start, which is, that's a World

Cup tour for us is the events that happen every year runs from December through to March.

There was somewhere between 12, sorry, 10 to 16 events every year.

And that's the top end of our sport.

So those same people competing at World Cup will be.

Competing at the Olympics, competing at World Championships.

So pretty young to get my first start.

But yeah.

How did you do it?

How did you get your first start?

We had to qualify.

There's a different criteria now, but at the time it was, I can't remember what the result was, but a

particular result you had to get at the US selections event, which is America's event they used to

qualify their athletes for the underpinning tour, which is the North America.

It's just under World Cup.

So we would go and compete at that.

And that's right at the start of the season.

Our results there would dictate if we were able to get that development start, we called it, where you just get one World

Cup start, not the whole tour.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Going in as a teenager, were there fellow teenagers?

Were you one of the youngest?

What was that process like?

I've always been one of the youngest on the team, but there were a few around my age that got selected at the same

time and that have come and gone on the team for over those years.

But yeah, up until about Beijing, I was still one of the younger ones on the, especially the World Cup team.

And then that flicked overnight as everyone retired.

But yeah, it was cool to be a bit younger on the team traveling.

I had really great people to look up to.

You know, we've got Matt Graham, Britt Cox, Brodie Summers, another World Cup medalist, and heaps of other

athletes on the team that were above me in the sport.

And so I could really watch and learn off them, which was a really valuable experience for me.

How different is Chikara, who was 18 years old at the World Champs in Spain, I think you finished 12th, to Chikara now?

Chikara then versus Chikara now is a very different story.

So a lot of the same, I have a lot of the same things I would say, but I deal with them differently.

So back then I was, I was very scared, still am, not that confident in myself.

And I really struggled with that, with training.

You know, I would go out there and I would cry a lot.

I wouldn't, I'd be too scared to jump some days, too scared to ski the moguls some days.

And you know, that level of fear has definitely dulled down a bit, but I've also learned how to better manage my mindset,

manage where my attention's going so that I can focus more on the things that are in my control and that I can do to put

down the runs I need to, rather than anything that could go wrong or what's terrifying about the sport.

So that would be the biggest change.

So I would say I back myself a lot more now, a lot more confident in myself.

And yeah, that fear is definitely still there, but definitely learned to manage it a lot more, that along with a whole bunch of other things I've gotten better at.

And yeah, worked really hard on that with my coach, Pete, and with all my support crew around me.

It's been a very long journey.

How old am I now?

25.

So we're like seven years on from that and yeah, just coming out the other side.

Where does the fear come from?

Is it?

I imagine it's very steep, is it like, is it, is it about the jumps?

Like, where does the fear come from?

All the courses are different.

So some are really steep, some are really flat.

Jumping has always been a really scary part of the sport for me.

I've always loved the turns and that's been my strength and I'm quite good at the jumping part, but it's always been really scary for me.

Um, I think, you know, there is that genuine consequence that you're doing an extreme sport, you crash, it hurts, you might injure yourself, you know, snow's not as

soft as people think.

It is.

Um, and I think that played into it a lot.

I think just some of the experiences I had when I was younger, they play into it, be the lingering fear, their fear of failure, feeling pressure from other people.

So I've really learned to deal with those aspects over the years.

Um, they still never go away, but think about them differently now.

And yeah, I don't know.

It's been a real journey and it's really, um, changed who I am as a person and an athlete for the better.

I think.

Mm.

Did you have?

Yeah.

What were the experiences you had as a young person?

Did you have some pretty bad injuries off the back of jumps?

No bad injuries.

So that's the weird thing crashes and stuff, but yeah, just a few bad experiences at training with a few bad experiences with coaches and they just have lingering effects.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

How have you managed to avoid some big injuries?

I needed, I need to borrow a bit of that.

I've been pretty lucky on the injury front.

Well, like hardware, I don't know what it comes down to a bit of both.

Probably.

I only had minor.

Injuries along the way.

The worst is probably I broke my toe running through the house before the Beijing Olympics.

Good.

Yeah.

That's probably the worst.

Um, I don't imagine most of the very fun though, with a broken toe.

Oh gosh.

No.

Yeah.

At least you're in a boots, not going anywhere, but it's trapped in there, but it's painful.

Yeah.

But in Australia, particularly we had put a really big emphasis on really nailing the fundamentals of the sport.

So having strong, basic skiing fundamentals, strong jumping fundamentals.

And.

When you take the time to really build them before you progress beyond maybe what your current ability is, when you do finally get to that level where you can progress, you can do it safely, you can do it much faster, you minimize the risk of anything going wrong.

And along with that, we spend so much time at the gym, getting strong and fit as possible, like the sport's pretty hard on your body.

Um, so having that strength helps you be able to manage that and also minimize the risk of injury as well.

Yeah.

Tell us about those three of you that were kind of favorites for that event.

You'd shared the podium throughout that World Cup year in the lead up.

Can you tell us a little bit more about where your headspace was at in terms of being one of the favorites heading into a winter Olympics?

It was a really cool season that one.

So you had myself, Henry Kolmoy from Japan, and Perrine Lafont from France, who was the reigning Olympic champion.

Pretty much that whole World Cup season, nearly every podium was the three of us.

in some changing order so we had a serious rivalry going on so heading into the olympics that was

pretty intense you know um there were a few of us that could take that top spot there were other

girls that if they stepped up they'd be capable of it so there was a lot of things going on leading

into it very cool position to be into in though and a major privilege you know going into pyeongchang

the 2018 olympics i was just going in for the experience i was ranked like 14th or something

no one knew who i was no one really cared what i was doing so it was a very different experience

than coming into beijing as a favorite and having a lot more attention on me a lot more eyes on me

the fact that it was a covid games probably helped you know no spectators no family uh media didn't

have quite as much access to you so it was a little calmer felt a little more like our world

cup events we have every week during the season nearly um so that all contributed but i think the

mental side of stuff the mental

the mental side of stuff the mental

we put in in the lead up to that was really key and how much work we put into all the aspects the

technical side the jumping the strength and conditioning that last like sort of 18 months

i think leading into the olympics 12 18 months myself and my whole team around me we really left

no stone unturned and i think we gave we did everything under the sun to give me the best

chance possible of going out there and doing the run that i was capable of so by the time we got

to the olympics i think i was able to do a lot of things i think i was able to do a lot of things

i think i felt more stressed in the lead up because i was like i have to put in so much work

to all these things to put myself in the position i want to be in that by the time i got to the

olympics i was like okay i've done all the work now i actually can't do anything else at this

point to change what's going to happen i just need to go out there and do it so it was probably the

least nervous i felt all season it's a bizarre feeling but really cool and really special i was

still nervous don't get me wrong but it was just definitely not as exacerbated as i thought it was

going to be which surprised me a lot but i think it was really cool and really special and i think

it surprised me as well it's quite an interesting concept i've chatted to melissa woo the diver

before on the podcast about how they plan the dives that they're going to do in terms of

difficulty as they kind of go throughout the process is that something with your jumps that

you plan well in advance or is it something that you change throughout competition based on where

you're sitting i don't tend to change my jumps too much throughout the competition i've been

sticking with the cork 720 mute on the top air so cork means it's an off

axis yeah so the core part means you're spinning off axis so like on your side 720 means it's like

720 degrees so two full rotations and the mute is the way i'm grabbing my skis so i'm crossing

them over and grabbing one so at the time that i was the only girl to be competing at that season

that no girl had competed on world cup at that time so we came into that season and no one really

knew i was capable of it and came out and started competing it and my jump score was like i don't know

because i was nearly the top had the top jump scores for every event in the lead up to the

olympics and at the olympics so that was really cool to be doing and pushing the sport in that

area and on the world stage especially um so yeah i do that jump and then on the bottom air i stick

to a back mute so that's just a backflip with that same grab i do on the top just a casual

backflip hey it's a bit easier than the cork okay good to know yeah how did you go from this

young teenager who was filled with a lot of fear to be

someone who was really pushing the boundaries of of what women had done before in the sport

that was really it was a big journey um i've always had really big goals in the sport and

so is my coach and we've been on the same page about wanting to push it kind of striving for

excellence and mastery in everything we do and having such strong jumping fundamentals

allowed me to go away and learn how to do these new tricks and uh because i'd gotten so strong

and fit and was fueling properly that was a big game changer for me

too you know my nutrition i was able to go and do huge numbers on the we call that a water ramp so

it's a plastic yes talk to us about the water yeah so that's key with the learning the new jumps

it's a plastic ramp into a pool at the jeff henke training center in brisbane although that only

opened in 2020 and prior to that it was in melbourne into a dam that's where i grew up

yeah not so glamorous not so glamorous the one in brisbane is epic it's one of the best in

the world i think wow i haven't seen many others but i've seen a lot of the best in the world and

i've seen a lot of footage and stuff from them and it's it's up there wow okay yeah so we practice

our tricks into the water first and that's how we go learn them so the consequences are a lot lower

still hurts if you get it wrong on water but you're not gonna the risk of actual injury is

much much lower so and you can do bigger numbers because it's a bit less impact on your body

yeah so that's big game changer in learning new tricks and then taking them to snow you've still

got to make that leap when you take it to snow which is still just as scary you know putting a

new jump in the water and then taking it to snow and then taking it to snow and then taking it to

trick on snows i don't think it ever gets less scary but yeah that's kind of the process of it

and how did it work for you in beijing was it as each run like you were just performing each run

and did you build confidence or was it like okay that run's done ticked the box on to the next

definitely just trying to stay present in beijing that was the big key for me so each run knowing

what it was that i needed to do uh we competed over a couple days which is not normal for us

and the course condition changes well it's not normal for us it's not normal for us it's not

well it changes every run because the snow moves as people are skiing it um so you've got to be

really thinking on your feet every run and lost my train of thought over a couple days

the fact that the conditions were changing what was like were you just ticking boxes as you like

finished each one yeah so beijing was about staying present so it's really easy well

especially for me but so many people out there to kind of get ahead of yourself and start thinking

about what the future could be you know am i going to win what's going to happen if i win how cool is

that going to be or what i've done in the past like you know maybe i made a mistake on the ski

out which is when you go from the jump back into the moguls maybe i messed that up last time and

kind of beating yourself up for that which i'm a sucker for um so rather than doing that we'd

spend a lot of work in the lead up on learning how to just stay in the moment stay present so

what is it that i'm gonna do next run what can i do this run to

give myself the chance to do what i need to do like okay i need to think about this on the top

air once i'm in the middle i'm going to think about this um but right in that moment when i'm

not skiing it's just about catching my thoughts that i'm thinking about what's going to happen

when i win which happened about 500 times at least that day so difficult and just bring it

back to the moment like okay right now i just need to chill and focus on what i can do but

so hard in the moment absolutely so standing can you talk to us

talk to us as if you're standing about to do your final run knowing that the gold medal is like

within reach oh yeah that's a tough one that run um like i said at the top just trying to

stay present but so hard before the run i was actually up there with my coach kate and we

were just looking at the stars like just trying to zone out like not really think about it i tend

not to try and focus too much on my run until i'm like one or two competitors out because if

switch on for too long my brain just goes to mush as i say it just stops working basically so when

i'm in the gate i'm kind of running through my head what it is that i need to do on each section

of the course it changes course to course some of them will be trickier in certain spots than

others and then a few technical prompts i need to have you know maybe i'm struggling with my top

air a little more there so i need to think about a certain thing there um like i know in beijing

for instance the entry the bumps into the bottom air were really difficult

so i knew i had to slow down before it so that i could get through them properly things like that

i'm just going over in my head so i remember to kind of think of them when i get in there because

you kind of just go to a bit of muscle memory once you're in the run and then have those prompts

there and then right before i go i'm just trying to stay as calm as possible and i just remind

myself like you've got this and that's it we're going when you're in the run you talked about

muscle memory bez and i did a video that i didn't end up posting and i think it was of one of your

runs we did a little green screen and what bez thought would be going through your mind and it's

pretty much like ouch ouch ouch ouch jump what is that that's awesome not that thankfully i'd be in

a world of pain if that was the case so as i'm going down the run it's those same things that

were happening at the top like we've done so much work prior to that and so many repetitions of the

skiing that that's kind of just taking care of itself with that muscle memory and then it's those

whatever i need and think specifically for that

course at the time is what's running through my head so i don't know like um some courses i really

need to think of making sure i'm getting on my outside ski or some of them i need to make sure

that i'm really hitting the mogul with the tip of my ski or coming into the jump i know i need to

take it right or left i know i need to come in faster than i think i want to or slower um there's

all sorts of things and it's really course dependent but there's probably about a million

things running through my head yeah thankfully ouch ouch ouch is

not one good it's very novice from bears i like that i appreciate it though you nailed your jumps

cross the line did you know already that you were an olympic gold medalist in that moment

at that moment i knew that i'd done the run that i'd gone there to do i was really proud of what

i'd achieved um what we'd achieved you know it's a fair team effort um couldn't have got to at that

point with on my own um so i was super proud i was like this is what i came here to do i've shown

the world what i'm capable of

i've put in the work that's the outcome and i was so happy with that i believe that that was

enough to take the top spot but i would have been happy if it wasn't and if anyone had have done a

run better than that then they deserve that top spot like hands down so it was a very special

feeling to be that content before you know the result it doesn't happen all the time so yeah

that made it even more special and i read that something about your response of when you had

it was almost like that was the plan all along is that how it felt well we go we spend the whole

four years we're aiming for that gold medal you know at training and stuff that's not the primary

thought you know at the end of the day i can't control the result unfortunately so i'm just out

there we've got technical stuff with the skiing that i want to achieve and the jumping that's

bigger than results you know that's kind of stuff that i want to do that would be a bit of a legacy

in the sport but that's the goal at training but in the back end of the day i'm just like i'm just

you are planning towards this olympic gold medal you know um that whole four years or my whole

career up until that point really so and you kind of don't have time to think about oh what if it

goes wrong what if i don't achieve that you know that's one of those uncontrollables at the end of

the day so you kind of just go into it thinking that that's what you're capable of and that's

what you're going to strive for and hopefully the plan all comes together but it's once every

four years so many things have to come together on the day like 30 seconds on one day and then

every four years like when you put it like that it's pretty ridiculous it is ridiculous i when i

was competing in rugby sevens at rio and we won that gold medal it was to me the feeling was

relief because it was something i'd wanted since i was a seven-year-old kid when i watched kathy

freeman did you have that sense of relief or was it more just we've done it tick the box onto the

next a little bit of all of that you know like a lot of pride in the fact of what we've been able

to achieve and do it at such a high level and put together and i think that's a really good

run that i was really proud of you know you can win with a runs depending on the event that's

maybe not your best skiing but i think i really went out there and did what i wanted to what i

wanted to show the world but yeah there definitely was a bit of that relief like okay we've really

done it like everything that we've been working for has paid off and we've come and achieved what

we set out to do earlier when you talked about younger jakara that was filled with a lot of fear

you also talked about the pressure from external sources

yeah i guess the pressure is an interesting one you know and pressure is a bit of a perception i

think pressure is kind of based off a lot of what well for me anyway what i think other people are

thinking of me which is totally not true so one of the biggest instances is like my coaches like

um like for instance i'll think that my coach pete is thinking something and i'm like oh my

gosh that's so much pressure and i'll kind of think like oh my gosh that's so much pressure

and i'll kind of let it start breaking me down and then when i finally do tell him he's like

when have i ever said that to you or he's like i don't think that about you so for me i think

pressure is definitely just that like what do you call it it just comes from it's still from me i

guess even though i feel like it's coming from external sources it's kind of like what do you

let in also and prior to the the season you've just had how do you feel like has it been something

hard to manage like being in a position where you're like oh my god i'm not going to be able to

and olympic gold medalist and starting to perform in crystal globes to feel like there's people

around you who start to expect that level of success from you it's an interesting one after

the olympics you know everything in that lead up was just aimed towards that and you finally

achieve it and you never give a second's thought to what happens after in the lead up so you know

that was our first gold medal in 12 years in winter sport so it had been a little while so

everything that came after that was a little bit of a struggle but i think it's been a little bit

of that really cool i was receiving a lot more support a lot more sponsorship opportunity a lot

more media exposure i got to meet some really cool people share my story hopefully inspire some

people and i got to see the impact that my performance at the olympics had on people back

home which was one of the coolest parts but with that it is a lot more responsibility it does take

a lot more time i'm already training so much to try and stay where i am that it took me a long

period of time to learn to juggle all those different things and i think it's been a lot more

and still do what i needed to do to keep me happy keep me healthy keep me loving the sport so it was

a pretty rocky 18 months after those olympics um you know i still had a great season the next season

um won multiple events took home the crystal globe in the moguls but it was a really tough

season for me you know i wasn't quite enjoying it like i had been in the past and this prior to

this season where i've broken the records and stuff it was all about kind of trying to get

to a spot where i could really enjoy the sport again and you know get back to why i started doing

it as a kid which i've heard that's a pretty common experience among a lot of um olympians

and olympic gold medalists you know a few people told me that was probably going to happen but i

didn't really believe them until i was in the middle of it and then had to dig myself out of

a bit of a hole yeah i had a lot of support along the way which has been really good so prior to

this season the record for the most mogul wins was 11 set by american legend uh hannah

khani hannah khani yeah she is amazing so that was back in 2000 the 2011 12 season that she set

that record and you've now come in and smashed it how did it feel to take a record like that

it was really special so hannah i absolutely idolized her growing up she was someone that i

was always looking to for like technical inspiration and just how hard she trained

how strong she was how she approached the sport so

to beat a record that she set was something i never thought i would ever achieve and it's

the first record i think i've held on the international stage you know i've broken a

few records within australia especially this season but that's the first one that is across

the whole globe and i feel like i have to clarify because people get confused it's not just a female

record it is male or female that one so i think the most male wins in a season is 10 by mikhail

which is absolutely mind-blowing huge bez um bez puts together the research for me and she one of

her questions was 14 wins from 16 events what happened in the two you lost she's savage okay

no i can't explain this so um i got third place in the jewel mobiles at idrifor in sweden so i was

dueling jaylen koff who american amazing athlete she came second on to me in all the crystal globes

this year so i had a super consistent great win and i'm so happy to be here with her and i'm so

happy to be here with her and i'm so happy to be here with her and i'm so happy to be here with her

season so she beat me in the semi-final in idrifor i um really messed up my jumps which

is very uncharacteristic for me and yeah she got me over the line so she progressed through to

ski for first place and i had to ski for third place so i got yeah secured that so that one

wasn't too bad and then we had deer valley this year which was i actually crashed so i um qualified

into finals in first place and you know had great finals training

the course was skiing so well but it was um really weird weather it was like raining at the bottom of

the course and trying to snow at the top of the course and after the training it started like

doing this wet snow on the top air and it wasn't getting cleared and that stuff is really sticky

and so when i came in we'd have the feedback i'd been getting from my coaches i misinterpreted

before the run and i thought it was just a okay trust your feel you're good

so i thought it was trust my feel on the speed like they told me it was a bit sticky

they meant go really fast trust your feel in the air to kind of important to clarify

important to clarify so i did not i really got slowed down in that sticky snow and did not jump

big enough so i didn't get close to making it to my feet yeah whoa okay so that's actually the

first time i've crashed that trick on snow and the first time i've crashed in a world cup so

that was a bit of a shock to everyone i think but i got up and ripped the rest of the run so

i was pretty stoked with that and i was just devastated to not get to show what i could do

i was skiing really well there and i was really excited to show everyone what i was capable of but

yeah i had to wait till jewels night to get that opportunity that was a bummer and for someone who

is in like the peak of your career from a performance perspective how do you deal with

the little failures like that yeah uh it's interesting that really would have broken me

a few years ago i think having that sort of a performance but this year i was able to be

really like analytical about it i was like well the odds of that happening were so low and it was

really unfortunate but we could actually take a lot away to learn about it in the way that we all

were communicating and i should probably watch some more people go before me when i know the

conditions are tricky and stuff like that so there are a lot of positives to take away from it

um pretty tough standing there and watching the super final ski and you're not a part of it um

but it was really cool to see the other girls out there competing they were really pushing it so the

one olivia giaccio she did a cork 1080 which there's not many girls out there doing that so

cool to see her out there pushing the sport and take the win but yeah i was stoked for them but

you know a little bum for me but we bounced back really well like i was saying i've learned to stay

a lot more present and you know accept that happened in the past know what i can change

moving forward and really just focus on that so you've got you came home with the three crystal

globes yeah um pretty they're pretty beautiful they're a stunning trophy

lovely yeah yeah literally a crystal globe on the stand like that's really cool yeah so you've

come home with those olympic champ most wins in history man or woman you don't have the world

champs title that's the one you don't have but i feel like from talking to you and getting to

know you that that obviously would be incredible to tick off but it seems like you're way more

process driven than that it's almost about how far you can push yourself to reach to get as close to

perfect as you possibly can yeah you've really nailed it there so i don't have the world

championship title that's kind of the one that i'm now missing in my career so definitely would

be great to go out there and win that but that's not going to be the focus for me um focus for me

my coach my team around me we're really invested in that process of trying to strive for excellence

mastery in the turns in the jumping in the speed of the sport in the strength and conditioning side

in the mental side like every aspect of it as a whole and just

get as good at it all as i can as close to perfect as i can like you said and kind of push beyond

where even i think i'm capable of is that's what's really driving me at the moment so the results are

great and i think they just come with that kind of pursuit of that process they're a bit of a result

of it but at the end of the day even if i don't achieve that world championship gold i think i'm

going to be pretty happy as long as i'm out there and skiing the way that i want to i'll be pretty

proud of that when you eventually do

retire it's hard to work out where you when you're trying to push the limits like how do you work at

a point when you retire how would you feel satisfied with your career yeah that's an

interesting one i think at this point with the results i've achieved i'm already satisfied you

know i've taken an olympic gold medal i've broken the records for most wins in a season i've won

crystal globes don't have that world championships gold but hopefully we'll get it by the time i

retire um i think for me the satisfaction

will come more about what i've achieved on the technical side of the sport you know i really want

we've got a few athletes in our um in mobile skiing who people always talk about they've left

a real legacy in the sport of how technically well they skied what they were doing with their

jumping how dominant they were in the sport and i'd really love to be considered as one of them

when i retire you know have a bit of a lasting impact on the sport that some girls and boys way

down the track are still talking about me and looking at me and i'm like oh my god i'm going to

be looking at me for inspiration that would leave me pretty satisfied i think that's pretty special

we chatted before the podcast about the fact that australia is a summer country and you're

competing in a winter sport and that a lot of the athletes who are in winter countries kind of walk

down the street as celebrities and things what's the experience been like for you as an aussie

achieving success at such a high level but then often coming home and having to deal with the

the summer olympics it is an interesting one that so winter sport in a summer sport country

uh everyone that i've interacted with super proud of my achievements but maybe it doesn't get as

much exposure as those summer sports so not as many people know about it so it is harder to get

support it is harder to get that exposure i've been pretty lucky that i've had that relatively

good especially since beijing but prior to that not such a smooth ride so yeah i'm one of few

are getting well supported it is very difficult um in australia but really grateful that for those

people who have come on board for the journey what do you think the biggest lesson you would

say for maybe a young kid who might be getting into a snow sport or whatever their sport they're

getting into what do you think your piece of advice would be definitely have fun as cliche

as that is like there's no point doing it if you're not enjoying it so i've loved skiing from

day dot and i just think that you need to keep looking till you find that thing that you're

really passionate about and pursue that um and then in terms of if you're looking at taking that

you want to try and go to the elite level i think not putting a ceiling on what you think

is possible just because other people have only achieved so much i think that's really important

you know um we've never had a woman compete in the cork 720 mute before i did and all it took

was for me to go and do it and next season we had so many more girls out there trying to compete it

so you know don't ever put a ceiling on what you're capable of

do you think sorry because i feel like that was a good wrap-up answer but that's an interesting

point that i just want to ask about what do you think it is about almost a mental barrier like

was it something where people saw you could do it and it then removes that barrier for people

being like oh i'm gonna give that a crack too yeah definitely i mean if you can't see it it's

kind of hard to believe it unless you've kind of got that bigger picture view so you know um not

having girls competing corks with grabs most people wouldn't have even given it a thought

like oh i'm gonna need to do that to

be competitive or i want to do that to push the sport they kind of would have just been oh that's

not really what we do you know so having just one person go out and do it changes the game for

everyone so that's really cool i love that thank you so much for having a chat today i've loved

the chance to get to know you and a bit more about your story and how process driven you are and um

yeah we we love supporting you from afar when you're overseas competing and can't wait to keep

watching so good luck for the remainder of your career thanks so much really appreciate all the

sports nice feeling so much

love from back home yeah very cool thanks so much for listening if you got something out of this

episode i would absolutely love it if you could send it on to one person who you think might enjoy

it otherwise subscribe give us a review and make sure you follow us on instagram at the female

athlete project to stay up to date with podcast episodes merch drops and of course news and

stories about epic female athletes

Need your own podcast transcribed?