Cooper Woods

Fast Facts

Sport: Freestyle Skiing
Event: Moguls
Olympic History: Beijing 2022
Highlights: 6th at Beijing 2022, 5th at 2022 Deer Valley World Cup
Coaches: Steve Desovich, Peter McNiel, Kate Blamey
Year Born: 2000
State Born: NSW

About Cooper

Raised on the New South Wales South Coast, Cooper took to mogul skiing at 11 with the Perisher Winter Sports Club and was quickly on his pathway with in the sport. With his mother, former aerial skier Katrina Woods, and his uncle, long-time Perisher and national team coach Peter Topalovic, close at hand, he grew up in a family where winter sport was part of everyday life. He represented Australia at the 2017 Asian Winter Games and made his World Cup debut the same year in Deer Valley. The following seasons brought hard lessons and steady progress, including becoming the first Australian male to win the U.S. Selections event at Winter Park in 2018, signalling that he belonged among the best.  

By 2020–21 he had broken into World Cup finals and placed 15th at his first World Championships in Almaty. The momentum carried into 2021–22: a personal-best fifth place at the Deer Valley World Cup set him up for an outstanding Olympic debut at Beijing 2022. There he made the men’s moguls super final and finished sixth with 78.88 points, joining Dale Begg‑Smith and Matt Graham as the only Australian men to reach an Olympic moguls super final.  

Cooper’s form matured again across 2023–24. In January 2024, he earned his first World Cup podium, taking silver at Waterville Valley in the United States with a score of 81.04 points in the super final, splitting Japan’s Ikuma Horishima (first) and Canada’s Mikaël Kingsbury (third). He backed that breakthrough with consistent top‑10 finishes and closed the season ranked eleventh in single moguls, seventh in dual moguls and tenth overall on the World Cup standings.  

The 2024–25 northern winter brought more evidence of his growing consistency. Cooper made the men’s final at Waterville again in January 2025 and placed 13th in the single moguls, with finals in Almaty later in the season where he was eighth. He then delivered a season‑best fifth in the dual moguls at Livigno on the future Olympic course, pushing Kingsbury in a tight quarter‑final.  

At the 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships in Engadin, he finished ninth in single moguls and eighth in dual moguls, underlining his status within the world’s top tier as teammate Matt Graham claimed dual moguls bronze.  

Away from the start gate, Cooper has continued to round out his life and career. He has combined national team duties under coaches including Steve Desovich with university study towards a Bachelor of Commerce, and when he’s home on the South Coast he is most often found in the surf. Those touchstones, together with a tight‑knit Perisher program, have helped shape a skier known for speed, control and composure under pressure. With a first World Cup podium on the board, finals appearances at world championships and a steady stream of top‑10s, Cooper is firmly embedded among the world’s best as he builds toward Milan‑Cortina.