Canada’s National Freestyle Mogul Team dominated the 2013 Freestyle Ski Grand Prix at Canada Olympic Park, taking three of the six podium places.
Montreal sisters Justine and Chloé Dufour-Lapointe shared their first gold, silver podium on the FIS World Cup circuit.
Their teammate Mikael Kingsbury earned his 13th career win and 25th World Cup medal, it was his 18th consecutive podium – the previous record was 13, held by Nano Pourtier of France in the 1981-82 season.
With her win, Justine not only moved significantly closer to her goal of competing in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games by securing one of two podiums required for Canada’s ‘Method A’ selection; but she also secured the FIS yellow bib as the current women’s mogul leader.
Eliza Outtrim of the US was the women’s bronze medalist with a score of 21.42.
Penticton’s (Rookie) Andi Naude made it to the six-woman super finals for the first time in her career. The seventeen-year-old fell on her final run and landed in sixth overall, but was thrilled nonetheless. She said, “It’s unfortunate I fell pretty hard but that’s ok — it was so fun and such a good experience, I’m so happy right now.”
In addition to the three Canadian women in the super finals, three more made it to the 16-woman final round. The third Dufour-Lapointe sister, Maxime, was 10th at 20.01; Christel Hamel was 11th at 19.60 for her first visit to World Cup finals; and Chelsea Henitiuk was 12th at 17.24. Myriam Leclerc finished 23rd in her inaugural World Cup event.
In the men’s field, Kingsbury’s top score of 24.00 just bested that of Russian Alexandr Smyshlyaev who scored 23.90. Sho Endo of Japan won the bronze medal at 22.68.
Kingsbury entered the super final in fifth position after a few uncharacteristic mistakes in his finals run.
Asked whether he could sustain his podium run all the way to Sochi, the Deux-Montagnes, Que. native who only needs a finish in the top two-thirds of the field from either the Sochi test event next month or the World Championships in March to all but secure his 2014 Olympic spot, replied, “I think its been working for 18 World Cup medals, why not 18 again?”
Kingsbury maintains the yellow bib in the men’s field with a healthy lead in the FIS standings.
Olympic Champion Alex Bilodeau finished fourth today on the extremely difficult and icy course after a mistake in his middle section. He scored 18.78.
Canadian men who made today’s final round included Marc-Antoine Gagnon in eighth at 21.80; Philippe Marquis in ninth at 21.80; Simon Pouliot-Cavanagh was 10th at 21.50; and PO Gagné was 15th at 20.20 after a brilliant qualification run landed him in fourth for the finals.
Hugo Blanchette finished 29th in his World Cup debut. Cedric Rochon and Kerrian Chunlaud did not finish today after falling in the qualification round.
As Canadian athletes on the podium here today, Kingsbury and the Dufour-Lapointe sisters also each earned a $5,000 Sarah Burke Performance Award from WINSport Canada.
This is in honor of the Halfpipe star who died last year following a training accident in Park City, Utah.
