Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, January 25, 2020 – Competition has just wrapped up at the Mackenzie Investments Moguls World Cup presented by Toyota, with reigning Canadian Olympic gold medallist Mikaël Kingsbury taking home the gold medal. The 27-year-old pulled an impressive finals performance, in which his bottom air cork 1080 sealed the deal. His coach, Steve Omischl, had no words to describe his athlete’s performance: “the guy is an alien”, he joked. “The course was so different to yesterday and it was a stressful qualification as I didn’t have the best training so I just wanted to play conservative in the qualifications” commented Mik. “As the day progressed I felt more confident and I was able to open the extra gear in the final.”
Kingsbury stood on top of the podium alongside Ikuma Hiroshima from Japan, who came in 2nd, and Benjamin Cavet from France, who took 3rd.
Fellow teammate Gabriel Dufresne, 23, took 12th overall and was pleased with his performance on home soil: “Today felt good, (skiing) first singles final – it was nice, in front of my people, my friends”.
It was also a special day for Brayden Kuroda, who attended his first World Cup. The young athlete finished in 34th place.
On the women’s side, Canadian athletes displayed strong performances, with Justine Dufour-Lapointe and Valérie Gilbert taking 5th and 8th respectively. Dufour-Lapointe was proud of her effort: “It is not the result I was hoping for, after a hard qualification, but it was a big step going from 12th to 5th, and I am proud of myself for that. I am proud of my skiing, I felt the pressure to ski faster and cleaner.”
Valérie Gilbert also worked to channel the pressure she felt to perform so close to her hometown of Saint-Adèle: “I was nervous this morning but I tried to put that on the side and I was really focusing on being constant in my training and feeling really good”.
The Mont-Tremblant Moguls World Cup was also a special event for Berkley Brown, 19, of Aurora, as it was her first event back after knee surgery. “I am really happy to make my first World Cup finals after my comeback season from my ACL last year!”, said Brown. “Unfortunately took a little tumble in finals but happy with being in it.” She finished in 16th place overall.
Overall, this was a particularly exciting World Cup for the Canadian athletes, as it was the first time the next generation development team went head to head with national team athletes as well as their international opponents.
OTHER CANADIAN ATHLETES’ PLACINGS:
Men:
Brenden Kelly (18)
Kerrian Chunlaud (21)
Robbie Andison (23)
Jordan Kober (28)
Ryan Portello (33)
Laurent Dumais (48)
Elliot Vaillancourt (49)
Women:
Chloé Dufour-Lapointe (17)
Laurianne Desmarais-Gilbert (19)
Maia Schwinghammer (30)
More information:
Sandra Haziza
[email protected]
