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Lake Placid, January 18, 2019 – For the first time this season, MikaëlKingsbury was unable to reach the podium Friday as he finished fifth in the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup moguls event in Lake Placid.
First in the qualifying round and first in the first final, Kingsbury had to settle for fifth place in the second final, with a score of 72.93. The event was won by Frenchman Benjamin Cavet with a total of 84.83 points, ahead of Sweden’s Walter Wallberg (81.47) and Australia’s Matt Graham (80.94). American Casey Andringa followed in fourth place with 76.87 points.
“I skied well on my first two runs, but in the super final I tried to go a little too big onthe top jump and made a stupid mistake,” said Kingsbury.
Kingsbury had won each of his four World Cup events so far in 2018-2019, three in single moguls and one in dual moguls. The Deux-Montagnes athlete had reached the podium in his previous 19 outings in a single mogul event, his last exclusion being on January 13, 2017, at Lake Placidwhere he had taken sixth place.
“I had a perfect season so far, so it’s a little difficult to accept,” he admitted. “But I’m going to do better next week in Tremblant.”
Kingsbury remains first in the overall mogul ranking with 445 points. Cavet is second with 330 points while Wallberg is third with 280 points. A win is worth 100 points in the ranking.
Philippe Marquis, who was only in his second World Cup since recovering from his right knee surgery following the PyeongChang Olympics, reached the final rounds and finished eighth on Friday. Last week in Calgary, when he first returned to the slopes, the Quebec City athlete finished 18thin qualifying.
“I’m really happy with my skiing, I never thought I’d reach the finals so soon after my return,” said Marquis. “My coaches and I have a good game plan. And the most exciting thing is to see how well I am progressing, while staying healthy. I can’t wait to see what happens next, maybe we’ll even add a level of difficulty to my run next week in Tremblant. The goal is to continue to improve until the World Championships in February.”
On the women’sside, Chloé Dufour-Lapointe was the best Canadian with a seventh place finish (71.43). She missed qualifying for the second final by only 0.06 points. The 27-year-old Montrealerachieved her fourth top-10 finish in five events so far this season on the World Cup circuit.
“It was a good day in some ways, not so good in others,” she said. “I worked on some things this week, especially on corks, but today the mix wasn’t quite right. I’m still glad I was able to give my 100 percent. The goal, in preparation for the Tremblant stage next week and up to the World Championships, is to further build my maneuvers in order to be in my zone once at the Worlds.”
Sofiane Gagnon, of Whistler, BC, posted her best ranking of the season with an eighth place finish, while Maia Schwinghammer, of Saskatoon, SK, reached the finals for the second time (16th)at only her second career World Cup after making her debut on the circuit last week in Calgary.
The next stop on the moguls circuit will be Saturday, January 26 in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, when the Mackenzie Investments Moguls World Cup presented by Toyota will be held.
Canadian Athletes’ Results:
Men:Mikaël Kingsbury (5), Philippe Marquis (8), Brenden Kelly (22), Gabriel Dufresne (23), Elliot Vaillancourt (25), Laurent Dumais (26), Kerrian Chunlaud (30), Simon Lemieux (45)
Ladies:Chloé Dufour-Lapointe (7), Sofiane Gagnon (8), Maia Schwinghammer (16), Justine Dufour-Lapointe (19)
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