Jaelin Kauf is the first American to win a World Cup season title in moguls skiing in a decade, clinching the crystal globe on Saturday with her seventh victory of the campaign.
Kauf, a 28-year-old Olympic silver medalist, won a dual moguls event in Almaty, Kazakhstan, for her 11th consecutive top-two finish between World Cup moguls and dual moguls events.
She leads 2018 Olympic champion Perrine Laffont of France by 206 points in the season standings combining results from both moguls and dual moguls.
There are two competitions left this season, with a maximum 100 points for each winner, so Laffont cannot catch Kauf.
Kauf previously finished second in the season standings in 2018 (to Laffont), 2019 (to Laffont) and 2024 (to 2022 Olympic champion Jakara Anthony of Australia, who this season has been out since sustaining an injury in December).
“I’ve been working at that for a long time,” Kauf said of securing the crystal globe.
Kauf led Laffont by 26 points going into Almaty’s two events (moguls Friday; dual moguls Saturday). Laffont skipped the Almaty stop.
Kauf’s season included a five-event World Cup win streak in February, the longest for an American between moguls and dual moguls since Hannah Kearney won 16 in a row in 2011 and 2012.
Kearney was the last American to win a season title in overall moguls in 2015.
Kearney was also the last American to win Olympic moguls gold in 2010. The current Olympic title drought is the longest in American history in moguls, which debuted as a medal event at the 1992 Albertville Games.
With dual moguls added to the Olympic program in 2026, Kauf can bid to become the second American skier to win two golds at one Olympics after Andrea Mead-Lawrence, who won Alpine’s giant slalom and slalom at the 1952 Oslo Games.
Before that are the World Championships in three weeks in Switzerland. Laffont and Kauf went one-two in moguls and dual moguls at the last worlds in 2023. Kauf can become the first American moguls skier to win a world title since Kearney in 2015.
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