James's Story
Fast Facts
Sport: Freestyle Skiing
Event: Moguls
Olympic History: PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022
Highlights: Dual Olympian, 14th at PyeongChang 2018
Coaches: Steve Desovich, Peter McNiel, Kate Blamey
Year Born: 1995
State Born: Argentina
About James
Born in Buenos Aires, James Matheson moved to Australia with his family when he was seven years old. Growing up James competed for his school in interschool sport, where he first tried mogul skiing and instantly fell in love with the sport.
In 2006 James joined the Perisher Winter Sports Club’s moguls program and four years later was offered a scholarship with the NSW Institute of Sport. Training under head coach Peter Topalovic, James continued to develop his skills and in 2013 made his World Cup debut in Deer Valley, USA.
After returning to the North American Cup for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, James achieved multiple top-five performances including a bronze medal in Val Saint-Come, Canada. With those results he qualified to make the step up to his first full season on the World Cup tour in 2016-17.
In that season he competed at the Pyeongchang Olympic test event where he placed 21st and went on to qualify for his first World Championships held in Sierra Nevada, Spain.
During the 2017-18 World Cup season James recorded a personal best result on day one of the Thaiwoo World Cup, placing seventh.
At 22 James made his Olympic debut at PyeongChang 2018 and advanced from the second qualification run into the first final, but was two places shy of moving through to the second final. He scored 73.96 in final one to finish as Australia’s second best placed male mogul skier in 14th overall.
Following the Olympics James showed more strong performances with a sixth-place finish at the 2018 Thaiwoo World Cup and ninth at the 2019 Calgary World Cup.
On the 2019-20 and 2020-21 World Cup tours he achieved multiple top-20 results in highly competitive fields. His results included an eighth place finish in dual moguls at the 2020 Deer Valley World Cup and a 16th place finish at the 2020 Idre Fjall World Cup.
After a long and pandemic affected 2020-21 season, James contested his third World Championships in March 2021.
At Beijing 2022 he started qualifying with a 71.86. James improved on his opening round performance to score 73.20, however it was not enough to see him move through to the last 20.
Geoff Lipshut, Chef De Mission of the Beijing 2022 Australian Winter Olympic Team, paid tribute to James' career and character.
"James is a model high performance athlete and student. He successfully balanced sport and studies and proudly represented his country at two Olympic Games," Mr Lipshut said.
"James has always been the nicest of nice guys in the mogul program and the best of teammates."
Outside of mogul skiing, James has completed a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Sydney. He is also the host of The Athlete Collective podcast, where he interviews a range of athletes about their sporting careers and their progression into life after sport.
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