Gold medal puts Jakara Anthony in exclusive Australian club after realising childhood Olympic dream

A lifetime of hard work, sacrifice and dedication had culminated in the realisation of a childhood dream, and Jakara Anthony was not quite ready to call it a day. “It’s 5am here and I have not been to bed yet, so it has been a big night,” Australia’s latest Olympic hero said, hours after winning her country’s first gold medal of the Beijing Games.

Anthony’s barnstorming victory in the women’s moguls wrote a new chapter in the annals of the country’s sporting history, as the 23-year-old blitzed the rest of the field over two days of competition to break Australia’s 12-year Winter Games gold medal drought.

Anthony, who placed fourth on her Olympic debut four years ago in Pyeongchang, dominated the competition on the slopes of the Zhangjiakou mountains. She led through every round before scoring 83.09 points in the six-woman super final to ensure she entered an exclusive club. Only Steven Bradbury, Alisa Camplin, Dale Begg-Smith, Torah Bright and Lydia Lassila had previously won gold at a Winter Olympics – the last two victories coming as long ago as the 2010 Vancouver Games.

“To have gone number one in every round is incredible,” Anthony said. “I know that I’m capable of skiing like that, and I was able to let myself do that and [that’s] something I take a lot of pride in.

“When I crossed the line I was like, whatever happens now I’m totally content with, because I was so happy with that run. It was truly my best run on the course and I was really proud of it. I thought I’d done enough [to win gold] … if anyone had beaten that run I would have been so stoked for them, because it would have been a phenomenal run.”

Anthony’s win also marked the first time in history that Australia has won more than one medal on the same day