Olympics Women’s Moguls Final medal results, highlights and more

The defending Olympic gold medalist fell just short in her bid to repeat. Here’s how things went down in women’s moguls at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Inclement weather has been taking its toll on other outdoor winter sports such as Alpine skiing and snowboarding. For the freestyle specialists, though, there was nothing holding up the conclusion of women’s moguls in Pyeongchang.

On Sunday evening in South Korea, the crowd assembled at Phoenix Park saw the top six women’s moguls skiers battling for Olympic gold. Entering the round, France’s Perrine Laffont was the top qualifier. By the end of the day, she was the new Olympic gold medalist after outperforming the defending Olympic champ.

MEDAL RESULT | Freestyle Skiing - Ladies' Moguls

Perrine Laffont

Justine Dufour-Lapointe

Yulia Galysheva

Justine Dufour-Lapointe won gold in Sochi four years ago, pipping her sister Chloe for the top step of the podium. There was no such luck this time for the Canadian, as she fell just nine-hundredths of a point behind Laffont.

In a sport that involves elements of timed scoring and judged scoring, there is plenty of opportunity for close finishes. Even so, this was the second-smallest gap between first and second in women’s moguls at the Olympics. Only the eight-hundredths of a second that separated Norway’s Stine Lise Hattestad from American skier Liz McIntyre at the 1994 Lillehammer games proved to be a closer finish.

Slotting in comfortably in third was Kazakhstan’s Yulia Galysheva. The 25-year-old Galysheva claimed her first medal in her third Winter Olympics appearance. Unlike the battle between Laffont and Dufour-Lapointe, there was little pressure from the other three skiers in the final.

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Galysheva finished on the podium more than two full points ahead of Jakara Anthony from Australia. It was an impressive effort on the moguls, especially for a skier who broke her hand a month ago in World Cup competition.

For the first time at the Winter Olympics, Americans were shut not just out of the podium finishes but also out of the final altogether. Jaelin Kauf was the top-ranked American, finishing seventh just outside the half-dozen spots in the final.