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AAP
AAP
Melissa Woods

Moguls queen Anthony riding the wave of ski success

Australia's record-breaking mogul skier Jakara Anthony is taking her sport to new heights. (HANDOUT/OWIA)

She has achieved a feat that not even the greatest mogul skier of all time, Mikael Kingsbury, has pulled off - but Jakara Anthony is already thinking about her next goals.

The Beijing Olympic gold medallist won 14 World Cup races this season - the most by any skier in a single campaign, including legendary Canadian Kingsbury who has claimed a remarkable 90 wins in total.

"It's definitely a very big achievement to come away with 14 wins out of 16 events, and I'm super-proud of what we were able to achieve," Anthony told AAP.

"We've done a really good job at getting to a place where I give myself the opportunity to put down the runs that are needed week after week on different courses.

"It's a really challenging thing to be that consistent."

With 22 World Cup wins to her name, Kingsbury's overall mark is still a long way off, but Aussie Anthony is already looking to push her sport to new levels, inspired by contemporaries including Australia's world No.1-ranked surfer Molly Picklum.

Australia's Molly Picklum
Molly Picklum has risen to the top of the world surf rankings. (HANDOUT/WORLD SURF LEAGUE)

Growing up an avid surfer in the tiny Victorian coastal town of Barwon Heads, Anthony joked that her parents would have preferred her to pursue that sport instead of skiing - so they could have followed summer instead of winter.

She keeps a close eye on Australian surfers, including 21-year-old Picklum - part of a new breed of women in the sport, whose fearless ride this year at Hawaii's famed Pipeline earned a perfect 10.

Anthony would normally spend part of Easter at the Bells Beach Classic, near her home, which starts on Tuesday, but is instead heading to Japan with sponsors to ski and do some coaching.

"I follow the surfing pretty closely, it's one of my favourite sports other than skiing, and all of those girls are out there absolutely crushing it," she said.

"They're a big inspiration, all those girls, how hard they charge out there and the way that they're approaching it and carrying themselves.

"I'm pretty devastated to miss Bells Beach this year."

Mogul skiing is judged on three elements - jumps, turns and speed - and while Anthony has previously excelled in jumps and turns, this season she consistently added the final ingredient of pure pace.

"I've managed to have my strongest season throughout all three aspects," she said.

"Turns have always been my strong point and it's the part of the sport that I love the most.

"We've really done a lot of work on my jumps, especially leading into Beijing (for the 2022 Winter Olympics) and getting the cork 720 mute going and being the only girl competing that at the time, I was just consistently taking out the highest jump scores.

"This season I've really been able to step up the speed that I'm skiing at.

"We've got girls like Jaelin Kauf from the United States, who's renowned for how fast she skis, so we've really had to step that up.

"With dual moguls coming into the next Olympics it becomes a little more important.

"I've really upped my game and closed that gap, and now I'm pretty strong across all three domains."

In a cork 720 mute jump, the 'cork' is the off-axis rotation, '720' is two full rotations, and 'mute' is the way a skier grabs the skis.

Her rivals are now also performing the jump, so Anthony is looking at how she can again get an edge ahead of the next Winter Games, in Milano-Cortina, Italy, in 2026.

"It's been really cool to have that kind of impact on the sport, getting the jumps in the women's field to progress,'' she said.

"We're going to see it keep progressing as chicks are trying to throw harder and harder jumps, and getting better every year.

"We're continuously working on all that on water ramps, to keep bringing new skills and get better at the jumps that I'm doing."

Anthony has set her sights on March 2025 in St Moritz, Switzerland - where she will look to win her first world championships gold medal - before the countdown to the Olympics in Italy really kicks in.

"That's kind of the last thing, when you're looking at pure results, that I haven't achieved in the sport," she said of a world title.

"But me, my coach Pete McNeil and my whole team around me have already put together a solid plan of where we want the next year to go.

"Milano-Cortina will come up pretty quickly, and with how complex the sport is with skiing, jumping, everything you have do off snow with getting your body right - it's hard to fit it all in.

"We're kind of having to pick and choose where we're going to put our focus and spend our time.

"Hopefully we get it all right and it pays off."

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