Cooper Woods

Fast Facts

Sport: Freestyle Skiing
Event: Moguls
Olympic History: Beijing 2022, Milano Cortina 2026
Highlights: 6th at Beijing 2022, 5th at 2022 Deer Valley World Cup
Coaches: Steve Desovich, Peter McNiel, Kate Blamey
Year Born: 2000

About Cooper

Moguls skier Cooper Woods rose to the occasion at his first Olympic Winter Games in Beijing with a sensational sixth. He achieved a World Cup podium in 2024 and two top-10 finishes at the 2025 World Championships. Milano Cortina 2026 is another opportunity to perform on the world’s biggest stage.  

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 to success 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 sports were part of everyday life.  

Cooper represented Australia at the 2017 Asian Winter Games and made his World Cup debut the same year in Deer Valley, USA. 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 qualified for the 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. 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 World Championships in Engadin, Switzerland, he finished ninth in moguls and eighth in dual moguls, underlining his status within the world’s top tier as teammate Matt Graham claimed dual moguls bronze.  

Cooper started the 2025-26 World Cup season with another top-10 result. He was ninth at the Ruka (FIN) World Cup, before unfortunately having a DNF the next day in qualifying,(along with teammate George Murphy) as Matt Graham went on to win gold.  

In the last three World Cup events before the Olympics, where fields are deep as athletes chase qualification points, he was 21st in moguls and 27th in dual moguls at Val St. Come (CAN). At Waterville Valley Resort (USA) he was 22nd in moguls but not far away from qualifying for finals, as he finetunes his preparations for his second Olympic Games.  

Away from the start gate, Cooper has continued to round out his life and career. He has combined national team duties under coaches, including uncle 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. A tight‑knit Perisher program has helped shape a skier known for speed, control and composure under pressure.