Jaelin Kauf takes Deer Valley Moguls crown with first World Cup win of season

Jaelin Kauf gets gold for the USA in the USA in individual moguls at Deer Valley Resort's FIS Freestyle World Cup. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

PARK CITY, Utah — Jaelin Kauf of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team won first place in Thursday night’s individual women’s moguls with 80.75 points skiing down the Olympic run, Champion, in 27.42 seconds in front of a loud crowd which came out from her childhood community of Alta, Wyoming and current community of Salt Lake City.

Perrine Laffont of France placed second with a score of 79.63 followed by Canada’s Maia Schwinghammer coming across the finish line scoring 75.22. Tess Johnson of the USA was one spot off the podium in fourth.

The men’s moguls was won by Japan’s Ikuma Horishima after he came in second last year, in second place this year was Kazakhstan’s Pavel Kolmakov and third place was taken by France’s Benjamin Cavet.

Park City’s own Nick Page who ski’s on this Deer Valley hill with the Wasatch Freestyle Team made qualified into the final round and ended up with a sixth place finish, just one spot behind his U.S. teammate Charlie Mickel, and one spot behind where Page placed last year, fifth.

Page, a 2022 Olympian, told TownLift, “It was a tough night, I was in a place that where I felt like was skiing well and and I just let go of the wheel a little bit in that super finals.  It’d be an understatement right now to say I’m frustrated, but, but I’ll bounce back and learn from this experience,” He said after skiing a strong 2/3 of the course then stopping short of his second jump and skiing around it slowly after determining his approach was as spot-on as it needed to be, and still crossing the finish line. “I’ll take a sec to process this then look forward to dual moguls on Saturday.” He continued, “The cool thing is, you know, I just got to give a big hug to both my parents and some really close friends out here, so whether I was dead last or I was first they’re gonna love me the same either way and getting to see them here at my hometown competition is really special.” 

Last year, Kauf was second to USA’s Olivia Giaccio’s first place win. After her run on Thursday, TownLift caught up with Giaccio, “It wasn’t my night tonight, but I’m certainly enjoying the beautiful atmosphere and I’m really excited for Jaelin taking the win. It’s nice to be in front of home crowd here with so many family and friends, so yeah, I can’t ask for anything more.” 

Famed Canadian bump skier Mikael Kingsbury who has graced many a podium in Deer Valley caught and edge as he approached the jump grinding him to a halt as he faced backwards on course, thus relegating him to not appearing in the final round.

USA women Kai Owens made it into her top-six finals however came out the bottom of the grouping with a DNF after blowing out of the moguls and her teammate, Park City native and Youth Sports Alliance athlete Alli Macuga had a strong competition just not quite strong enough to advance to the final round. That didn’t stop the pride from flowing out of her dad, Dan, on Thursday. He told TownLift, “It’s great to have Alli skiing here at Deer Valley tonight.” He was asked about her sister, Lauren who stood on a World Cup alpine podium in Austria mere days earlier for whom he was also proud. When then asked about his two other children, all graduates of the Winter Sports School, Daniel competing in Canada in alpine and Sam competing in Lake Placid in the Ski Jumping World Cup. “My wife, Amy is in Europe spectating but I think I chose best tonight to be be right here in our hometown of Park City.” 

Taking a few days away from his day job at the Utah Olympic Park, where the U.S. Aerials Team trains in the pool and on snow, Jaime Kimball is this World Cup’s venue producer, a position he’s held for about as many years as the event has been here in town. His wife, Susie English, is Deer Valley’s vice president of marketing and her father, Chuck was in those initial meetings decades ago representing his Deer Valley in discussions of if the resort could or should try to get the first FIS Freestyle World Cup to Deer Valley, let alone the 2002 Olympics, and those DV OGs could likely never imagine the joys of hosting the 2034 Winter Olympic Games. Kimball told TownLift, “Hosting the Intermountain Healthcare Freestyle International World Cup at Deer Valley is always a great experience as we welcome athletes from all over the world while simultaneously entertaining so many locals who come out to support them and cheer them on. It’s no wonder Deer Valley remains the most popular stop on this international circuit.”

Current Park City High School student Nate Gendron was happy to get to compete in his first home hill international event.

Friday night at 7:00 p.m is the aerials competition and Saturday night is the dual moguls. All events are free to the public.