Olivia Giaccio Pulls Off Surprising Victory in Women's Moguls

Olivia Giaccio competes in the women's moguls qualification at the FIS Freestyle Ski & Snowboard World Championships on March 8, 2017 in Sierra Nevada, Spain.

Olivia Giaccio earned her first world cup victory Saturday and, in doing so, she snapped Perrine Laffont’s recent dominance in women’s mogul skiing.
Giaccio, a 21-year-old from Redding, Connecticut, scored 78.51 points to pull off an upset at the world cup competition in Ruka, Finland.
Laffont, the reigning Olympic mogul champion from France, has been a constant atop the medal podium over the past few years. She won all nine world cup events during the 2019-20 and 2021 seasons, and she capped it off with a victory at last year’s world championships.
The Frenchwoman’s winning streak came to an end Saturday, though.
Giaccio, whose previous best world cup finish was 14th, edged Australia’s Jakara Anthony, who took second with 78.17 points.
Kai Owens, a 17-year-old from Vail, Colorado, finished third with 76.61 points to earn her first world cup medal. That left Laffont, who scored 76.57 points, to miss her first medal podium since January 2018 with a fourth-place finish. American Hannah Soar rounded out the top five, finishing just with 75.38 points.
In November, Giaccio was named to the U.S. freestyle ski team for the sixth time. She is hoping to qualify for her first Winter Olympics after being the highest-ranked American to not make the 2018 U.S. Olympic team.