Tess Johnson earned her first World Cup moguls victory in seven years, becoming the third different American woman to win this season in a discipline that figures to be very competitive for 2026 Olympic team selection.
Johnson led a U.S. one-two with Jaelin Kauf, edging Kauf 77.68 to 77.66, on Friday in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The six-skier super final was canceled due to poor visibility, so results were used from the first run of finals with 16 skiers.
Johnson snapped Kauf’s win streak at five, though the World Cup standings leader Kauf did extend her run to 10 consecutive top-two finishes in World Cups.
The Almaty field included neither 2022 Olympic champion Jakara Anthony of Australia (sidelined since a December injury) nor 2018 Olympic champion Perrine Laffont of France (skipping this stop).
Johnson moved up to fifth in this season’s World Cup standings counting results in both moguls and dual moguls, the latter making its Olympic debut in 2026.
Five American women are in the top 15 of the standings -- Kauf (first), Olivia Giaccio (fourth), Johnson (fifth), Kasey Hogg (10th) and Kai Owens (12th).
The U.S. is expected to have four women’s moguls spots at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games with the team announced next season.
When she was 14, Johnson became the youngest skier to ever make the U.S. national team in moguls. At 17, she became at the time the youngest U.S. Olympic moguls skier in history and placed 12th at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
A month later, Johnson earned her first World Cup win in dual moguls, which had been her lone top-level international victory until Friday in Almaty.
In 2022, Johnson did not make the four-woman Beijing Olympic team despite being ranked fifth overall in the World Cup standings at the time of the last selection.
“This only fuels my hunger for more at the World Cups following the Games, and I will never stop believing in myself,” was posted on Johnson’s social media at the time. “I’m proud to say I fought my hardest, I performed, and I will continue to do so. I’m grateful to everyone who has supported me relentlessly throughout this painstaking process. I guess I will just always wonder what I could have shown the world in China.”
