While growing up in Wyoming’s Teton Valley, Kauf didn’t immediately take to moguls, the skiing discipline where athletes navigate a series of snowy bumps down a mountain while performing a pair of aerial tricks. Sure, Kauf’s parents, Scott and Patti, were professional moguls skiers, so she had the genetic advantage. But initially, Kauf preferred competing in alpine racing. “I wasn’t won over by moguls,” says Kauf in a September interview from Park City, Utah, where the U.S. team trains. “It was definitely a slow, gradual attraction.” 

However, several factors eventually steered young Jaelin toward moguls—and ultimately toward becoming a gold-medal contender at the Milano Cortina Olympics. First, her brother Skyler, who is a year older than Jaelin, skied moguls. “I wanted to do everything he did and be just like him,” says Kauf. At a competition in Sun Valley, Idaho, when she was around 8, Kauf crashed multiple times during her run and face-planted at the finish line. Still, as the youngest competitor in the field, she won her age group. “I was really excited,” she says.

The bulkier also played a role. “I was pretty glad to not be in the tight speed suit freezing cold on the mountain,” she says. 

Ultimately, the key driver for Kauf pursuing moguls was that it combined all her passions of skiing into a concise package. “It has the speed, it has a focus on turns, it has the aerial elements,” she says. “And it all comes together in a 30-second run.”

Even during the Winter Olympics, moguls races—which compete for attention against headline sports like and —rarely generate significant buzz. That could change this year in the U.S., thanks to Kauf’s prowess on the mounds. In 2025, Kauf, making her third Olympic appearance, won her sport’s triple crown, securing titles in overall moguls, single moguls, and —an event making its Olympic debut in Italy. (In dual moguls, skiers race down the mountain simultaneously in a knockout tournament format. However, being first to the finish doesn’t always determine the winner. The judged aspects of moguls— and aerial skill—collectively carry more weight in scoring than speed.)

The most frequent question Kauf, 29, gets about her sport: does skiing moguls harm her knees? Those down the mountain seem like a boon for orthopedic surgeons. But while the twisting motions can strain knee joints, Kauf finds the back more prone to pain. “I won’t say there’s no wear and tear on the knees, but knees are at least somewhat designed to handle absorption and movement like that,” she says. “Between the moguls, jumping, and landings, there’s a lot of compression on the back.” So Kauf incorporates Pilates and core training into her regimen. 

Kauf, who also has 16 World Cup victories and a world championship to her name, finished seventh in moguls at PyeongChang. The lead-up to Beijing was challenging. Kauf qualified for those Games largely based on her performance in the previous season, so she used pre-Olympic World Cups to attempt new tricks. However, some subpar finishes led the moguls community to question if Kauf deserved her spot on the U.S. team. “I kept hearing and reading all that criticism,” she says. “It really affected me. I started to doubt myself and believe the negativity. That was definitely the toughest moment in my career.” During a two-week pre-Olympic camp in Utah, Kauf cried daily.

She turned to former U.S. moguls skier Shannon Bahrke, a two-time Olympic medalist, for guidance on approaching her second Olympics. Bahrke advised her to keep a journal and write daily affirmations. “She truly transformed my mindset,” says Kauf. “It was like getting a motivational boost every day.”

Kauf credits part of her success last season to a tactical adjustment. She felt more confident landing a difficult aerial trick—a cork 720, or two full off-axis rotations—at the top of the run, rather than the bottom. “It just clicked, where I could land it and ski out smoothly, whether the takeoff was perfect or not,” she says. She’s stuck with this strategy this World Cup season and won a dual-moguls event in Canada in July. 

Kauf insists this will be her final Olympics. “I feel like I’ve poured so much of my life into this sport and am ready for something new, something different,” she says. “I’m not sure what that something will be.” In December, she earned a degree in environmental and sustainable studies from the University of Utah. “Maybe I’ll put that degree to use somehow,” she says. 

But make no mistake: improving on her silver medal from Beijing—competing in two events for the first time at the Olympics—is her top priority. She’s eager about the possibility. “I’ve had an incredible career and can be proud of all I’ve achieved,” she says. “But for this Olympics, I really want to showcase myself to the world and give my all every time. And hopefully, I can end up on some podiums.”