LIVIGNO: Australia’s Matt Graham has left the door ajar to compete at a fifth Olympic Games after winning bronze in the dual moguls to cap a stellar week for the green and gold on Livigno’s moguls course.
Graham copped the short straw with his draw, forced to ski down the more difficult blue side in four of his five runs, with his opponents skiing on the red side. His quest for gold was halted by a rapid semi-final performance by Japan’s Ikuma Horishima but the 31-year-old from NSW’s Central Coast bounced back superbly in his battle for bronze, defeating another Japanese star, Takuya Shimakawa, 20-15 to secure his second Olympic medal.
Graham, a flag bearer for Milano Cortina 2026, had been hinting before the Games that he would likely be retiring at the end of the season but adding a bronze to his Pyeongchang 2018 silver appeared to spark the possibility of returning at 35 in a bid to complete the set at the French Alps.
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“Of course there is, of course there is and the fact that we’ve got two opportunities now helps as well,” Graham told Australian media, including Wide World of Sports, after the medal presentation.
“But yeah, we’ll see. I don’t know what the future holds for me just yet. Very happy to be here and to have the family here is very special.”
Milano Cortina 2026 was Graham’s first Olympics as a father, with his wife Jess and daughter Ava watching him compete from the bottom of the Livigno course.
In an improbable twist, all three of the dual mogul medallists were veterans who have in recent years become fathers. They’re starting to become accustomed to standing alongside each other on what they call a “dad podium”.
“At the end of the day I knew what was at stake that last run because Mik (Canadian gold medallist Mikael Kingsbury) and Ikuma (Horishima) had already locked in their podium spots and, me being the third dad, I needed to execute to make sure we could fulfil that dream of a dad podium,” he said with a smirk.
Kingsbury is nicknamed “the king of moguls” having dominated the sport for more than a decade. He was on the wrong side of the tightest possible result when Aussie Cooper Woods claimed gold in the single moguls despite registering the same score as the Canadian legend. Woods pipped Kingsbury for gold in the purists’ version of the discipline due to his superior turn score, but Kingsbury is now in a position to retire with an Olympic record more befitting of his nickname, having added a gold and a silver in Livigno to his gold at Pyeongchang 2018 and two silvers at Sochi 2014 and Beijing 2022.
“He sort of told me at the bottom there, that’s him done, he’s retiring. So I’m very proud for him,” Graham said.
The ‘dad podium’, from left, silver medallist Ikuma Horishima, gold medallist Mikael Kingsbury and bronze medallist Matt Graham. AP
Kingsbury’s superb Games at 33 is another layer to Graham’s wrestle with whether to ski on aiming for a last hurrah in 2030 or retire to prioritise his family life.
He pointed to the longevity of tennis and surfing legends Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Kelly Slater as examples of athletes staying at the top of their sport well into their thirties and even forties due to the evolution of sports science when laying out the case for continuing.
The 31-year-old indicated in a separate interview with Nine that the financial cost of chasing the dream was also a factor, saying: “If money wasn’t a thing, maybe I’d keep going.”
At this stage the only certainty is that he will compete until the end of the World Cup season in pursuit of a Crystal Globe.
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“I’m going on for the rest of the World Cup tour but I haven’t decided beyond that really,” he said.
“Just focusing on this being the main event and then, I’m in second on the World Cup standings, so the plan will be to go to Japan and Azerbaijan and hopefully the goal now will be to try to win a World Cup title.”
If this is the final Olympic Games for Graham, the bronze medal will be a fitting ending, coming 20 years to the day since Dale Begg-Smith broke new ground for Australia by winning the nation’s first ever moguls Olympic gold hours away by car, in Turin.
Begg-Smith mentored Graham and has been sending him text messages with advice during the Games, even as Graham takes on the role as the respected senior leader and mentor for the likes of Woods, who became Australia’s latest moguls gold medallist last week.
Woods was unable to continue his hot form in the dual moguls, despite a good draw due to his second seeding. In the more frenzied format, which Graham said was “almost like Buzz Lightyear, you’re falling with style”, Woods lost control soon after the first air in his round of 16 heat and never really recovered, choosing not to ski over the second jump for safety reasons. He was eliminated by American Charlie Mickel by a score of 32-3.
“I was just a little out of time the whole way,” he told Australian media, including Wide World of Sports after his elimination.
“I kind of spun around in the course and chewed up and it almost spat me back out. I was just out of time and I wasn’t in a very balanced position hitting the jump and there’s a safety aspect. I want to enjoy my success instead of being all smashed up so yeah, that was my decision not to hit the jump. I’m disappointed but I still walk away with my head really high after the other day.”
He acknowledged that his family would be quick to bring him back to earth after going from gold medallist to an early elimination.
“With the mistakes that I made today I’m sure they’re going to let me know that I’m not the greatest in the world anymore,” he laughed.