Mikaël Kingsbury celebrated his 150the participation in the World Cup on Saturday by being imperial for a second day in a row, flying over the World Cup duels in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Gold medalist in the individual event the day before, the “King of moguls” added an 89e victory to his already impressive record. “I had a really good feeling. As soon as I did my round of 32, I knew I was going to be difficult to beat today,” mentioned the athlete from Deux-Montagnes, by videoconference.
After narrowly escaping the individual crystal globe on Friday, Kingsbury ensured on Saturday to win the duels and the general classification. “I did everything to put pressure on him [à Ikuma Horishima] and get the globe in singles on Friday. It was close, but today, to have made it all happen is special. It is numbers 25 and 26 who will return home. »
The Quebecer holds a lead of 228 points over Horishima in the parallel moguls ranking, then 218 points in the cumulative ranking of the two events.
And in addition to bringing home some new trinkets, Kingsbury became the male skier with the most starts in the history of the World Cup mogul circuit.
It’s a big milestone. I now have the most World Cup experience in history. It’s a record that I’m really proud of because I’m the one who managed to last the longest in this sport.
Mikaël Kingsbury
After victories against the trio of Americans Cole McDonald, Nick Page and Landon Wendler, who completed the podium, the grand final pitted him against Pavel Kolmakov of Kazakhstan. The wind and shade were there during this last descent, but Kingsbury remained very stable unlike his opponent who did not manage to complete his descent.
For his part, Julien Viel obtained the second best Canadian result among men with a sixth place. He stopped in the quarter-finals against the future bronze medalist. The last time he did better this season was in December at Alpe d’Huez, France, where he finished 5e rank in this same event.
Their teammates Gabriel Dufresne and Elliot Vaillancourt were also in action on Saturday. They ranked 18e and 30e.
The only Quebec representative in the women’s draw, Laurianne Desmarais-Gilbert repeated the same scenario as in the individual event the day before by taking 18e rank. The women’s event was won by Australian Jakara Anthony ahead of Americans Jaelin Kauf and Olivia Giaccio.
Now that the Kazakh stage is over, the next and final meeting of the parallel moguls World Cup circuit will be contested in Italy, in Chiesa in Valmalenco, on March 16.
“For me, it’s a bit of a candy event, but I’m still going to do everything to win. My parents are going to come and join me in Italy, so it’s just going to be nice to be with them who have been there for a long time,” concluded Kingsbury.