Mogul skier Matt Graham has claimed his second medal at the 2023 FIS World Championships, capturing the bronze medal in the dual moguls overnight in Bakuriani, Georgia, becoming just the second Australian to ever win two medals at a FIS World Championships after Dale Begg-Smith's gold and silver in Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, back in 2007.
Graham has now collected an impressive four World Championship medals across his career and has won at least one medal at each of the past three World titles, which are held every two years.
He claimed the second medal for Australia at the 2023 FIS World Championships, with a silver medal performance. The 2018 Olympic silver medallist placed fifth in the first round of finals with a score of 85.60 points, and then stepped it up in the super-final with a huge score of 88.90 points together with the fastest speed in 22.49 seconds.
Edging out Graham to take the singles win by just 0.92 points in the last run of the day was the defending World Champion Canadian Mikael Kingsbury, with Walter Walberg of Sweden rounding out the podium in third with a score of 88.52 points.
“It’s pretty surreal to be honest” said the 28-year-old from the NSW Central Coast.
“Everyone was skiing so well today and so fast. In my last run I felt like I had to find three points on top of the other guys, so I just rally planted that top air well, charged though the middle section and then was just hanging on to get off the bottom air and managed to put it to my feet.”
“When the score came up and it was over 88, that was awesome, I knew I had put the pressure on the top guys and managed to hold onto second place, so I am over the moon.”
Cooper Woods was the best of the other Aussie skiers in 11th place and World Championship debutants George Murphy and Jackson Harvey were 26th and 28th.
After taking the silver medal in the single moguls in Georgia, Graham was full of confidence heading into the dual moguls, which will feature in the Olympic Winter Games for the first time in 2026 at Milano-Cortina, Italy.
Graham had victories in the round of 32 against British skier Thomas Gerken-Schofield and Kosuke Sugimoto in the round of 16 to reach the quarter final stage.
After defeating Nick Page of the USA in the quarter-final, Graham then faced 2022 Olympic gold medallist Walter Wallberg of Sweden in the semi-final, going down 14-21 points. .
In the duel for the bronze medal, Graham then defeated Pavel Kolmakov of Kazakhstan with a score of 20-15 for his second medal at the World Championships.
“To go back-to-back in any World Cup or World Championships is awesome, and now we have the opportunity to do it at the Olympics, in three years’ time assuming I am there – that’s what I will be chasing,” said the 28-year-old from the NSW Central Coast.
“It felt pretty exhausting to be honest. There are a lot of runs in duals and the intensity was so high, and it’s been a long week with three training days and two competition days. At the top I was just trying to psych myself up and get the legs firing each run and just happy to make it down and get through all the rounds and come away with a bronze medal.”
“Strength and conditioning off snow is so important, and now having duals at the Olympics it’s even more important to have to put runs down back-to-back on such a quick timeline, so I guess I need to get home and back in the gym.”
Cooper Woods had a number of impressive duels in the early rounds and was unlucky not to advance through to the quarter finals, with the judges awarding his round of 16 dual to Kolmakov 18-17, giving him a final ranking of ninth.
Also in action for Australia in just a second start in the World Championship were George Murphy in 14th place and Jackson Harvey in 19th.
