Victorious in singles on Friday, Mikaël Kingsbury won again on Saturday, this time in a duel, at the Freestyle Skiing World Cup in Idre Fjäll, Sweden. At the same time, he is now the leader in the circuit rankings both in individual and parallel moguls.
In the grand final, the Quebecer got the better of the Swede Rasmus Stegfeldt who surprised the Japanese Ikuma Horishima in the semi-final. In his journey which led him to his 82nd World Cup victory, the worker from Deux-Montagnes had previously defeated the Frenchman Marius Bourdette, the Quebecers Elliot Vaillancourt and Louis-David Chalifoux, as well as the Swede Walter Wallberg.
Ikuma Horishima completed the podium.
This is a third podium in three World Cups for Kingsbury this season with two gold medals and one bronze. A sign that he is not resting on his laurels, the triple Olympic medalist had just returned from the weights room where he had lifted 110 kg in the squat before answering questions from journalists by videoconference.
Before his duel against Wallberg, which could be described as “the final before the final”, Kingsbury admitted to having difficulty finding his rhythm on the track.
“It was once I reached the final four that I felt ready. My duels before were good, but I was looking for a little more and when the guys take on me, they go all out, so it’s never easy. »
More stable than the Beijing Games gold medalist in his descent, Kingsbury was behind Wallberg. He accelerated before the second jump and landed much further away, allowing him to be the first to cross the finish line. A risky move, but one that paid off in the end.
“When I open my jets, I’m the fastest! […] You have to take risks, but I had a good feeling and I knew that my feet would arrive in the right place. »
Sixth, Louis-David Chalifoux signed the best result of his young World Cup career, having placed seventh the day before.
“He’s strong on his skis and it’s cool to see there were five Canadians in the final. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that in men,” Kingsbury said happily. Louis-David, he had a solid weekend and he’s a metronome who goes down all the time. He does not give the judges the chance to deduct points from him. It’s fun to see! »
Samuel Goodison placed 9th, Elliot Vaillancourt 11th, Julien Viel 13th and Gabriel Dufresne 25th.
Laurianne Desmarais-Gilbert placed 28th in the women’s event where the best Canadian was Saskatchewan’s Maia Schwinghammer, 15th.
The mogul specialists will be at Alpe d’Huez, France, next weekend.
