{"id":477845,"date":"2026-02-13T18:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477845\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:17:10","slug":"winter-olympics-2026-josie-baff-claims-australias-second-gold-with-stunning-snowboard-cross-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477845\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics 2026: Josie Baff claims Australia’s second gold with stunning snowboard cross triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josie Baff has produced a stunning display to win gold in the women’s snowboard cross at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

Putting a disappointing seeding run behind her, the 23-year-old powered through the three highly competitive heats to reach the big final.<\/p>\n

There, she powered past a high quality field to claim a memorable gold medal.<\/p>\n

Baff smiled as she stood on the dais, but burst into tears and covered her face after looking down at the gold medal around her neck.<\/p>\n

Read more about the Winter Olympics:<\/p>\n

“It’s amazing. I can’t really believe it, I knew I could do it and I knew deep down I had what it took,” Baff told Channel Nine.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t won in a very long time so to be able to win here at this event and to have one of the world’s most sought after gold medals around my neck is absolutely incredible.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t change anything for the world, I’m so happy and thankful to all of my techs and my coaches and the team around and all of my friends and family here, I truly couldn’t have done it without them.<\/p>\n

“It hasn’t been easy, I had flu at the start of the week. I actually am just in shock, I’m so happy.”<\/p>\n

\"Josie<\/p>\n

Josie Baff shows off her gold medal after winning the women’s snowboard cross final. (AP: Julia Demaree Nikhinson)<\/p>\n

The 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games gold medallist and 2023 World Championship silver medallist had to battle, just to make the final.<\/p>\n

After a confident display in the first heat, Baff knocked out British hope Charlotte Bankes in a hotly contested quarter final that came down to a photo finish.<\/p>\n

Then, in the semi final, she delivered a wonderful performance to claim first and make her way into the big final.<\/p>\n

There, she was pitted against two former Olympic champions and another Youth Olympic champion, but was simply undaunted by the level of her opposition.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Mirroring the same move that she took to cut through the field from third to first in the semi final, Baff flew up the inside on a tight corner to overtake 2014 champion Eva Adamczykova to take the lead.<\/p>\n

She then held on through the bottom section of the course to claim victory by the narrowest of margins, 0.04 seconds.<\/p>\n

Italian 2018 champion Michela Moioli finished third, with Swiss teenager Noemie Wiedmer the unfortunate rider to finish medal-less from the four-woman final.<\/p>\n

It capped a happy few days for Baff \u2014 her partner, Canadian Eliott Grondin, won silver in the men’s cross the day before.<\/p>\n

Abbey Wilson was knocked out in the 1\/8 final, while Mia Clift missed out in the quarter final.<\/p>\n

Baff is Australia’s second medallist of the 2026 Games, following Cooper Woods’s moguls gold<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josie Baff has produced a stunning display to win gold in the women’s snowboard cross at the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[110809,64,63,2649,16496,190438,234686,142583,219554,85,234053,31080],"class_list":{"0":"post-477845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-final","12":"tag-medal","13":"tag-milan-cortina","14":"tag-milan-cortina-2026","15":"tag-milano-cortina","16":"tag-snowboard-cross","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-winter-olympic-games","19":"tag-winter-olympics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}