Australia's Jakara Anthony continues to be one of the most dominant performers in winter sports after the freestyle skiing ace bounced her way to another World Cup victory in France.
The Olympic champ made it three World Cup moguls wins in a row in successive weekends, continuing her unbeaten sequence at the Alpe d'Huez resort in commanding fashion on Friday after triumphs in Idre Fjall, Sweden, last weekend and Ruka, Finland the week before.
The 25-year-old, who completed the same season-starting treble last season before going on to lift the crystal globe as the overall World Cup moguls champ, already looks an overwhelming favourite to repeat the triumph in this campaign with three of the eight events gone.
With her 11th World Cup win at the resort most famous for featuring on numerous Tours de France, Anthony has already opened up a big lead in the overall moguls standings over her pursuers, 90 points clear of American Jaelin Kauf, who's the only woman to have beaten her this season in the dual moguls in Idre Fjall.
Anthony is not so dominant in the dual moguls, where competitors go head-to-head in a knockout competition but she'll have the chance on Saturday (Sunday AEDT) to end a streak of seven World Cup losses in the discipline when she seeks to gain revenge over Kauf, who beat her in the Swedish semi-final.
Anthony ended up taking the bronze in that event last weekend as she sets her sights on her first dual moguls win since Chiesa in Valmalenco in March last year.
Friday's victory, though, followed the path of Anthony's previous two emphatic wins as she recorded comfortably the best run in qualifying and also topped the standings in both runs of the final, being the only competitor in the field to score more than 80.
"I was pretty nervous out there today so was just happy to put down three solid runs and have another crack at what I’m out here to do," said Anthony.
Her best run came in qualifying when she scored 80.84, and she was awarded 80.42 in her first finals run, before dominating in the six-woman super final showdown with a 79.98 run that left her well ahead of Kauf (75.64) and fellow Amerrican Olivia Giaccio (74.82).
In Friday's men's moguls, Anthony's fellow Australian Olympian Cooper Woods also made the final run, eventually finishing sixth overall with Canadian maestro Mikael Kingsbury roaring to the 83rd victory of his stellar career.
