MILAN – After the moguls competition on Thursday, where he failed to make the super final, Durango’s Charlie Mickel admitted that he arrived at Sunday’s dual moguls event with a pretty negative outlook.
But after a very strong bounce-back performance, making it all the way to the quarterfinals and upsetting the moguls gold medalist along the way, he will leave the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy in a much happier frame of mind after finishing sixth in dual moguls.
“I would say all around, I'm proud of the way I skied today,” said the 21-year-old. “I was actually quite tired this morning, and honestly, I was a little discouraged from the singles event. So I felt like I started in a bit of a hole this morning. I had some rough training runs.”
“But just before my first run, I took some time to myself, to just kind of get centered and be like: ‘Hey, I know I can do this. I know my skiing is capable of being some of the best,”’ Mickel continued. “So I just kind of steadied myself with that, focused on what I thought would lead me to the best runs, and I got pretty close to skiing them, I think.”
Although it is common on the World Cup circuit, the dual moguls is a new event for the Olympics. Similar to the difference between regular scoring and match play in golf, it is all about winning a head-to-head match-up to move on to the next round, with the actual score being irrelevant. There are seven elements where each skier is evaluated versus his opponent – four for turns, two for jumps, and one for speed.
In his round-of-32 match-up with fellow American Landon Wendler, Mickel won by a comfortable margin, taking every category except for speed down the course. That earned him a match-up in the round of 16 against Cooper Woods, the heavily favored Australian who won the moguls gold medal. But when Woods found unexpected struggles in the bottom portion of the course, and did not even complete his second jump, Mickel found himself waltzing into the quarterfinals after a solid run that had no major mistakes.
“Cooper has been skiing outstanding, so that was big, for sure,” said Mickel, the 2023-24 NorAm Cup overall champion, who topped the rankings that year in both moguls and dual moguls. “I kind of told myself: ‘This is how I prove it right now that I could be a metal contender, and I can be at the top of this field.’ And so I just went into that dual super determined and ready to give it everything I had.”
He added that he has learned how dual moguls requires a different approach, and that played a key role in his success on Sunday. Mickel’s stellar run in dual moguls ended to 31-year-old Australian Matt Graham, one of the top mogul skiers of this generation, who went on to win the bronze.
“In duals, you're usually just picking whatever line you think is gonna be fastest,” he said. “Since most of us are just doing retraction flips on the bottom air, that kind of comes out of play a little bit to where it's like, really what's important is the top jump and the ski-out for the first two-thirds. After that, I mean, you're basically just holding on and getting as much speed in the bottom air as you can.”
Mickel – who learned how to ski at Purgatory Resort and Chapman Hill when he was six, and got into moguls because his dad, Alex, coached that team – said that he already is looking forward to the 2030 Games in France.
“Just coming here and skiing this event, it made me realize how much opportunity there is, you know, the possibilities that I have,” he said. “So I think it was a little bit eye-opening coming to the Olympics and seeing how much spotlight you really get at this event. It definitely is motivating for me to just try to take every single day as an opportunity to get better from now until the next Games and even through every season between them.”
For the moment, he’ll head to Milan and enjoy the last of these Olympics through to the closing ceremony and then get on a plane and fly to Japan, site of the next World Cup stop. He’ll combine work and pleasure on that trip, as his good friend and fellow competitor George Murphy, who has a Japanese parent and speaks the language, is going to host him and show him around after the competition ends.
“I’m super excited for that, especially all the great food we’ll be having,” the son of Alex and Molly said, adding that he’ll be off to Azerbaijan after that to wrap up the season before heading home.
Fans can follow Charlie’s journey and see behind-the-scenes content from the Olympic Village and beyond on Instagram at @Charlie_Mickel1.
