‘He leads with his heart’: Meet the man who helped build Australia’s moguls dynasty

Livigno: Peter McNiel looks like the kind of bloke who you’d find barnacled to a stool at a surf club somewhere along Australia’s east coast, sinking schooners while dispensing unsolicited opinions about swell lines, shark attacks and sandbanks.

“I haven’t had any media training, guys, so be careful,” he said, approaching the Australian press pack after Jakara Anthony’s history-making dual moguls triumph at Milano Cortina 2026, minutes after it happened.

Good. Stay that way.

Despite appearances, McNiel would rather be in a blizzard than at the beach - and he, perhaps more than any other Australian, has done as much to dispel the myth that because we don’t have much snow, we can’t compete in winter sport. That we should think of ourselves as underdogs who don’t belong.

Of Australia’s eight Winter Olympic gold medals, four have come from moguls skiing, and three have come during McNiel’s time as head of that program.

They say the opposite: that Australia is a growing force.

“He’s a humble guy,” said Australian chef de mission Alisa Camplin. “He leads with his heart.”

Anthony has won two of those medals, the second coming on Saturday after bouncing back from bitter disappointment. The unheralded Cooper Woods, also a McNiel protégé, came from the clouds in the men’s moguls to win the other. He has known and worked with both of them since they were kids, while veteran Matt Graham linked up with him more recently, seeking some of his magic dust.

“I might be angling for a raise,” he said.

McNiel remembers the first time he saw Anthony ski. She was 12, and he was not yet her coach; that formal relationship started a few years later.

“The way she stood on her ski and moved … I was just like, ‘That girl,’” he said.

“I was only a junior coach too, but there’s something about the way she skis that I think [said] she could be great … just some fundamental thing that makes sense in your mind.

“And I don’t know - now we’re here.”

McNiel has been by her side for three Olympics now, but it’s unlikely he has had to pick Anthony up the way he did after her shocking stumble in the women’s moguls competition this week. The defending champion from Beijing was a red-hot favourite, and there was no indication that something like that was coming.

“She was in unbelievable form,” he said.

“We had great training coming in. She’d done everything she needed to do to back up her gold medal - and just tiny, in a glimpse of a blink of an eye, [her] skis crossed and she had to pull out of the course. I think the action that happened was the same as when she broke her collarbone, so maybe even a little bit triggered.

“That night, sleepless. Jak was mortified.”

Outside of the Olympics, all moguls competitions - men’s and women’s - run together on the same day. Here, it’s spread out, so both McNiel and Anthony had to go on an emotional rollercoaster: from absolute devastation, to ecstasy when Woods produced his miracle run to win gold the next day, then back to the realities of preparing for dual moguls.

“It’s a really weird situation because you’ve just missed the thing that you wanted most,” he said.

“Then the team’s winning and you’re devastated and you’re crying. You’re so happy for the team. It’s almost more tiring because it’s this up and down, up and down - you’re happy, you’re sad, you’re happy, you’re sad. You can’t catch your breath.”

So what does an elite coach do in that situation, to make a champion feel like one again?

Lovebomb them.

“Honestly, athletes, when you have a situation like that, they need to believe,” he said.

“They need to know that the people around them believe in them and feel supported. I tried to show her that Australia was pouring out love and support and was just as devastated for her. I often put my hand on her heart and say, ‘It’s all within you.’ One run isn’t a reflection of your ability.

“The emotional toll of what happened is huge. To then, in just a day or two, to come back and perform at the highest level of the sport when you’ve been so drained - it was an absolute reflection of the work she’s done, to be able to have that kind of resolve.”

Woods, who McNiel has also worked with since he was 12, is a different character and therefore, requires different treatment.

“One thing I think about Cooper is a little bit of pressure he struggles with, but a lot of pressure, he often rises,” he said. “He rose to the challenge of the pressure that was put on him … it was an unbelievable run. I think he’s probably still pinching himself.”

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