American Jaelin Kauf, the World Cup season champion, was eighth in the eight-woman final. Kauf was bumped off her line in the middle section of moguls.The U.S. Winter Olympic team is loaded with new stars and returning legends going into the Milan Cortina Games.Kingsbury had swept the moguls and dual moguls titles at the last […]
American Jaelin Kauf, the World Cup season champion, was eighth in the eight-woman final. Kauf was bumped off her line in the middle section of moguls.The U.S. Winter Olympic team is loaded with new stars and returning legends going into the Milan Cortina Games.Kingsbury had swept the moguls and dual moguls titles at the last three worlds in 2019, 2021 and 2023. Horishima won both in 2017.Though Kingsbury won his 13th World Cup overall season title this winter, plus reached 99 career World Cup victories, Horishima won three of the last four World Cup moguls competitions.Laffont, 26, became the first woman to win three world titles in moguls. She also owns three world titles in dual moguls, an event that makes its Olympic debut at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
Canadian Maia Schwinghammer earned bronze at worlds in Switzerland on Wednesday.Since winning her last world title in 2023, Laffont took the 2023-24 season off as a break ahead of the 2025 Worlds and 2026 Olympics. This season, she finished second in the World Cup standings to Kauf.Laffont, the 2018 Olympic gold medalist, scored 77.92 points in her super final run to overtake Hinako Tomitaka of Japan. Later Wednesday, Horishima won his second world title in moguls, and first in eight years.The dual moguls event at these worlds is Friday.The 2022 Olympic bronze medalist dominated the men’s super final with 89.03 points, distancing Kingsbury (82.68) and bronze medalist Daeyoon Jung of South Korea (81.76). American Nick Page took fourth.Horishima landed a cork 1440 off the second and final jump.Perrine Laffont of France won a third consecutive World Championship in moguls while Japan’s Ikuma Horishima earned his second title, ending Canadian Mikaël Kingsbury’s streak.Reigning Olympic gold medalists Jakara Anthony of Australia and Walter Wallberg of Sweden last competed in December, missing the rest of the season due to injuries.The top U.S. female moguls skier and male moguls skier on the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) points lists going into the 2025-26 season clinch a spot on the 2026 Olympic team, should they also be ranked in the top three overall. Those lists are expected to be posted later in the spring.“It’s hard to believe,” Laffont said through tears within minutes of the victory. “I didn’t think it could happen.”In “Strong,” a 2023 film on the mental health of some of France’s top athletes, Laffont said she wanted to quit the sport in 2019 due to expectations, pressure and scrutiny that came with becoming an Olympic champion at age 19. She said it was the start of the “first hard moments” of her career.
Kauf went into worlds ranked No. 1 in FIS points.
