Abi Harrigan

Fast Facts

Sport: Freestyle Skiing
Events: Halfpipe
Olympic History: Beijing 2022
Highlights: Representing Australia at Lausanne 2020 and Beijing 2022
Coach: Leon Tarbotton
Year Born: 2002
State Born: ACT

About Abi

Canberra-born and Jindabyne‑raised, Abi Harrigan was on skis by two and, chasing her brothers around Perisher, she quickly found the joy of jumping off anything the mountain put in front of her. 

By her mid‑teens she was already winning at home and across the Tasman, sweeping junior halfpipe and slopestyle titles in Australia and New Zealand in 2017 and again taking slopestyle gold in 2018. Her World Cup debut came in 2019 with halfpipe at Cardrona, where she placed 18th as the pathway from junior promise to senior competition began in earnest. 

Abi represented Australia at the Winter Youth Olympic Games at Lausanne in 2020, placing 12th in slopestyle, 10th in halfpipe and 15th in big air. A year later she competed at the 2021 World Championship in Aspen and delivered a top‑20 in two events, highlighted by 13th in slopestyle and 18th in Big Air. 

Abi backed that up by winning the slopestyle gold again at both the 2018 Australian and New Zealand titles a year later. Her World Cup debut was in September 2019, which she ended in 18th for the halfpipe back at Cardrona.

With the Tasman area well-covered, it was time for Abi to head overseas and compete as part of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Switzerland. She finished 12th in the slopestyle, 10th in the halfpipe and 15th in the big air.

Abi followed that with silver in big air at the European Cup in Davos, Switzerland.

A year later and she had another podium finish - bronze in slopestyle at Innsbruck - which put Abi in strong form heading into the 2021 World Championships at Aspen in March. She enjoyed top 20 finishes in two events; 13th in slopestyle and 18th in big air.

Her Olympic debut at Beijing in 2022 revealed her resilience as much as her talent. Three weeks before the Games a crash in training left her with a fractured fibula; she withdrew from big air and halfpipe but, determined to become an Olympian, she competed in slopestyle and finished 26th. The experience, grimacing through pain yet stubbornly putting down runs, became a touchstone for the seasons to come.  

As the international circuit resumed after the Games, Abi broadened her competitive range in slopestyle and big air. In March 2024 she posted career‑building results with 12th in both big air and slopestyle at Tignes and a personal‑best‑matching 11th in slopestyle at Silvaplana. She also stepped onto the senior European circuit, winning a European Cup slopestyle at La Clusaz and adding a big air bronze at Davos 10 days later, a sign that her trick variety and execution were starting to score against strong fields. 

Momentum accelerated in the 2024/25 season. In November she opened with a personal‑best seventh at the Stubai Slopestyle World Cup when high winds forced qualification to stand as final results (International Ski Federation; Olympic Winter Institute of Australia). She returned from the holiday break with 14th at the inaugural Big Air Klagenfurt, reinforcing steady progress in the bigger single‑jump format. Then came her breakthrough: silver at the Tignes Slopestyle World Cup season finale on 14 March 2025, the first World Cup slopestyle podium by an Australian since Russ Henshaw in 2017 and only the second by an Australian woman following Anna Segal’s era‑defining feats. 

With confidence high, Abi headed to the FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships in Engadin later that month, competing in both of her primary events. She placed 24th in slopestyle and 24th in big air, banking valuable championship experience against a field that included the eventual champions Mathilde Gremaud and Flora Tabanelli. Her full season body of work was rewarded back home, where she was named Snow Australia’s Freeski Park & Pipe Female Athlete of the Year, and on the rankings, where she finished a career‑high ninth on the International Ski Federation slopestyle points list. 

Returning to domestic snow in August 2025, Abi opened the southern winter with a podium at Thredbo, finishing second in the women’s big air at the Australia New Zealand Cup as preparations began for the 2025/26 international season. 

Away from the scoreboard, Abi remains closely connected to the Snowy Mountains community. She grew up skiing with the Perisher Winter Sports Club and working with the New South Wales Institute of Sport pathway program. She currently works with coach Leon Tarbotton as she continues to refine her slopestyle and big air runs. During Beijing 2022 she was among the first athletes to sign the Olympic Truce Mural alongside IOC President Thomas Bach, a small moment that spoke to the pride she takes in representing Australia on and off the snow. 

From a two‑year‑old on little skis to a World Cup medallist, Abi’s story is one of steady progression and persistence. The lift in her results over 2024 and 2025, capped by that silver in Tignes, underlines her growth as a genuine contender in women’s slopestyle and big air as she eyes the next peak in her journey.