Salt Lake City resident Jaelin Kauf won the USA’s second medal of the Beijing Olympics on Sunday morning, taking silver in women’s moguls skiing.
To win silver, Kauf had to make it through one round of qualifying — she finished third in her qualifying round — and then finished fourth in the first finals round and second in the second finals round to make the medal round.
In the medal round, Kauf attacked the course, traversing the bumpy terrain in 26.37 seconds.
Kauf performed a backflip mute grab on her first jump and a backflip iron cross on the second.
She earned a score of 80.28.
Kauf went second-to-last in the medal final, which meant that she knew what score she needed to get on the podium.
“When it popped up with my score, I realized that I was getting an Olympic medal,” Kauf said, per Team USA.
Kauf was in gold medal position with one skier left, but Australia’s Jakara Anthony laid down a fantastic run to score 83.09 and win gold.
Russia Olympic Committee’s Anastasiia Smirnova won bronze.
Kauf, 25-years-old, won her first-ever Olympic medal. She placed seventh in moguls at the 2018 Games.
Her parents, Scott and Patti, were both champion professional moguls skiers. NBC cut to a feed of Kauf’s family and friends cheering her on from Scott’s bar in Wyoming.
“The biggest thing that I learned from my parents, and the biggest thing that I took into this Olympics, was just having fun — just doing my thing,” Kauf said.
“That’s the thing they always really tried to instill in me is just do it for the love of it with passion.”
Park City resident Olivia Giaccio finished sixth in the moguls event, with University of Utah student Hannah Soar placing seventh.
Park City resident Kai Owens finished 10th and Park City resident Sabrina Cass, competing for Brazil, finished 26th.
How other athletes with Utah ties did in Sunday’s medal events
Cross-Country Skiing — Men’s 30km skiathlon
Snorri Einarsson (Iceland) — University of Utah (2007-08 Utah ski team) — 29th place out of 70 competitors
Speedskating — Men’s 5000m
Ethan Cepuran — University of Utah (current student) — 17th place out of 20 competitors
Ski Jumping — Men’s individual normal hill
Casey Larson — University of Utah (current student) — 39th place out of 53 competitors
Kevin Bickner — Park City resident — 43rd place out of 53 competitors
Luge — Men’s singles
Chris Mazdzer — Salt Lake City resident — eighth place out of 20 competitors
Snowboarding — Men’s slopestyle
Sean FitzSimons — University of Utah (current student) — 11th place out of 12 competitors
Alpine Skiing — Men’s downhill
Ryan Cochran-Siegle — Westminster College (former student) — 14th place out of 42 competitors
Bryce Bennett — Westminster College (former student) — 19th place out of 42 competitors
Travis Ganong — Westminster College (former student) — 20th place out of 42 competitors