“I think people look at people that do extreme sports and assume they have no fear. But I don’t think that’s the truth. I think they’ve just learned how to better manage it, deal with it and accept it. I don’t think you can not feel fear doing some of the stuff we do.”
She knows there are genuine risks with her sport and says she still experiences fear performing moves she’s carried off thousands of times before.
“If I have a crash, take a big fall, there’s physical consequences,” she says. “And then there’s all the mental kind of fears too, you know, like fear of failure, fear of anything, really. But yeah, it’s definitely a scary sport. The jumping in particular, I find pretty scary. But the more you do it, you do get more used to it.”
We’re seated at Mammoth Cafe in Armadale. I’ve managed to catch Anthony on her only day in Melbourne after a small stint at her home in Barwon Heads, before she heads to Sydney for five days, then Japan for 10. By early March, Anthony has already been on 20 different flights this year, most of those international.
It’s late afternoon, so she grabs a chia bowl, which she describes as “lunch dessert”. It features chocolate, hazelnut and orange granola, poached pear, coconut yoghurt, chia pudding and frozen raspberries.
“I eat a lot [because of all the training], so it’s perfect,” she says.
Chia bowl at Mammoth Cafe.Credit: Luis Ascui
I opt for a chop chop salad with sesame-crumbed tofu because I haven’t eaten lunch yet, and we both get a coffee. Hers is an iced skinny decaf latte, which she laughs about now, unfortunately, being “on the record”.
While not her first Olympics (that was PyeongChang in South Korea in 2018), Anthony really caught the attention of Australian sport fans during the 2022 Beijing Games. She won every round of the women’s moguls there to become just Australia’s sixth-ever winter gold medallist, the first since Lydia Lassila (women’s aerials) in 2010.
It was a moment she says is still hard to put into words.
“But for me, I was just so happy to go out there and put down the run that I was proud of, it was the run that I went there to do. So, regardless of the result, I was so happy with it, which is a really special feeling. I haven’t had that many times,” says Anthony.
But it was in the aftermath of her win that she really found herself in unknown territory.
Anthony dominated her way through winter sports in her childhood and teen years – at 16, she cracked the world top 10 with a ninth-place finish at the Tazawako World Cup in Japan and a year later placed fourth at the Olympics – so a winter gold was the dream she was always working towards. But what happens after?
“You never think about what comes afterwards. It’s all about that lead-up … everything’s just focused on getting to that point, but the aftermath was crazy,” Anthony says.
To start with, she says, it was a COVID-affected Games, meaning when she did get back to Australia, she couldn’t see anyone or celebrate her victory. Then there was still a World Cup tour she had to finish.
Chop chop salad at Mammoth Cafe.Credit: Luis Ascui
“Mentally, it’s a tough one. I don’t even really understand it,” she says. “You kind of just come off the biggest high of your life and you put everything into this one thing … how do you go about keeping on moving forward in the same way that you have? Or to achieve new things you want? It’s taken a bit of time to figure that out,” Anthony says.
“I’ve had a lot of help along the way – and we’re in a really good spot now and [on] a really good trajectory – so it’s exciting to come out the other end of it. [But a] pretty rough first year after it, like lots of cool things, but, you know, a little tricky as well.”
One of the “cool things” that came from her Olympic gold was sponsorships, something she couldn’t get before the win. Now, she has deals with apparel company Lululemon, hair and body care brand Eleven Australia and skincare brand Premax.
Before this, she was primarily supported by the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia and NSW Institute of Sport when it came to training and equipment in her teenage years.
With the sponsorships came speaking opportunities, something she’s grateful for but that adds to her already overflowing plate.
“Adding that all in on top of a training schedule gets pretty hectic,” she says. “You’re juggling a lot of things at once, and it gets a bit overwhelming.”
Jakara Anthony after winning the freestyle moguls final in Almaty.
One of the reasons the sponsorships were important is that winter sport doesn’t come cheap. There’s the specialist equipment and gear, the constant travel and accommodation and the training fees.
Anthony, showing immense skill from such a young age, had a lot of those covered by the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. But she acknowledges that “you have to be right at the top end of the sport … to be getting that”.
“Otherwise, you’re self-funded to that point. And now you do get prize money on World Cup, but if you’re off the podium, you’re not making a whole lot of money,” she says.
This sets a pretty high barrier for a lot of Australians seeking to get into winter sports and their growth in a country dominated by summer ones such as cricket and tennis and, in Olympic terms, swimming, athletics and cycling.
Jakara Anthony en route to gold for Australia.Credit: Getty Images
“The cost of it definitely impacts the accessibility,” says Anthony. “You know, when I was younger, we could only kind of do it because my parents were staff on the mountain [Mt Buller]. So they would work out there for the season, they would kind of pay for it and we were in pretty average accommodation.
“Mum worked at the ticket office, so we all got lift tickets … they did those kinds of things to make it happen, which I’m really grateful for. But yeah, the price point can definitely be a big hurdle to get into the sport.”
This also answers the question of how a girl from Barwon Heads became Australia’s most successful winter athlete.
Anthony says the financial barriers definitely impact the growth of the sport, which she believes has gotten even more expensive that when she started. However, she says one attraction to girls picking up the sport is that it’s been equal pay between genders, at least as long as she’s been involved.
“So I’ve never experienced that disparity, which is cool,” she says.
Receipt from Marnie Vinall’s lunch with Jakara Anthony at Mammoth Cafe, Armadale
Despite this, Anthony remains the only current Australian female mogul skier on the World Cup and Olympic circuit.
Growing up, she used to race alongside her hero Britt Cox, a four-time Olympian and world champion, who is now a mentor and friend. Cox became the first Australian woman to win the crystal globe for women’s moguls in the 2016-17 season, after securing seven gold medals across various competitions to equal the record held by former Olympic great Alisa Camplin.
Anthony and Cox would race in the same events, including at the PyeongChang and Beijing Olympics, before Cox retired from competitive skiing in July 2022. Since then, Anthony is the sole female in the Australian mogul team, which she admits can get lonely.
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“We’ve got some girls up and coming in the development team. So we’ll see what they’re able to achieve in the next couple of years. We still have a little bit of time before Milan [2026 Winter Olympics].
“But all the girls that I’ve kind of grown up competing and stuff with retired after the last Olympics.
“So not having the girls with me gets a little lonely, but the boys are great to hang out with and my coaches and our support staff, you know, we’re like a family.”
Anthony, who is about to leave me to head into the city for a sponsorship celebration event, admits for 25, her life is very full-on. But she’s grateful.
“I’d like to live out of a suitcase a little less,” she laughs. “But it is very cool getting to see so many different places … I’ve travelled to a lot of places I wouldn’t otherwise, like, I’ve competed in Kazakhstan, Russia, Georgia, [they] are not places I ever thought I would visit …
“There’s choices we make, and that’s kind of one of the choices of doing the sport is that you choose to live a pretty hectic life. There’ll be time to slow down after sport.”
