Freestyle skiing | Five Canadians advance to the final

(Mont-Tremblant) Five Canadians, three men and two women, reached the finals of the second stage of the Freestyle Skiing World Cup at Tremblant on Saturday.

Winner of the stage presented on Friday, Quebecer Mikaël Kingsbury finished second in the qualifying round held late Saturday morning.

His score of 81.98 did not put him ahead of his main rival in the World Cup standings, Japan’s Ikuma Horishima, who scored 82.71.

American Nick Page (81.52) took third place.

Silver medalist ahead of Horishima on Friday, Swede Walter Wallberg (78.38) finished in sixth place in qualifying.

The other two Canadians who qualified in the men’s portion of the competition are Brenden Kelly (77.66) and Laurent Dumais (76.81). They placed, respectively, eighth and 13^e.

Alexandre Lavoie (75.99) missed his qualification for the final by 23 hundredths of a point, yielding on 16^e ranks with Frenchman Benjamin Cavet.

The holders of the 16 best scores automatically qualified for the first final. This stage will be followed by the super final, which will bring together six athletes.

Jordan Kober (74.51), Gabriel Dufresne (72.30), Ryan Portello (71.48), Louis-David Chalifoux (67.11) and Julien Viel (66.88) are the other Canadians trying to spawn a path among the top-16.

Earlier in the day, in the women’s section, sisters Chloé and Justine Dufour Lapointe were the only Canadian women to qualify for the final.

Chloé Dufour-Lapointe placed eighth with a score of 74.83. Justine followed in 13^e place, with a score of 73.04.

Maia Schwinghammer (71.22) and Berkley Brown (70.92) took the 17^e and 18^e places. Laurianne Desmarais-Gilbert (66.50) placed 22^e and Valérie Gilbert (42.95), 37^e.

Frenchwoman Perrine Lafont dominated qualifying with a score of 80.69. Japan’s Anri Kawamura finished second (78.95), ahead of Australia’s Jakara Anthony (78.40).

This final stop at Tremblant and the two competitions scheduled for next week in Deer Valley are the last opportunities for Canadian hardworkers to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, which will be held February 4-20.