Mikaël Kingsbury gave himself a chance to achieve a goal set before the start of the freestyle ski season.
The “King” of moguls was in a class of his own on Friday. Kingsbury easily won the men’s individual moguls event at the World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Already assured of the crystal globe in the discipline and in the general classification, the freestyle skier from Deux-Montagnes obtained a score of 85.67 in the super final. He edged his closest pursuer, local favorite Pavel Kolmakov, by 6.95 points.
“When I was at the top of the course, I heard that Pavel had obtained a mark in the 78. I knew that I needed a copy and paste of the final, told Kingsbury by videoconference. I knew I could improve my landings a bit on both jumps, which I did. That’s what bumped my score up from 83 to 85.
“Sometimes these races are more difficult when the door is wide open. You will hold back too much. But with my experience, I have already experienced this. You just have to make your descent and not imagine that it will be an easy victory. »
Australian Matt Graham completed the podium with a score of 78.42.
Kingsbury used a jump for the first time in competition, performing a “cork 720 truck driver” on the second jump, rather than his traditional “cork 1080”. This is a double corkscrew rotation with a grip of the ski spatulas in the pike position.
He made this decision because he felt the landing on the second jump was flatter than usual.
“Knowing that I can do it well and go for eights with that, it becomes a jump that I can reuse when the landing is more difficult, underlined Kingsbury. The degree of difficulty is almost the same as 1080.
“It took me a while to understand the value of catches. I was never fond of single takes because it seemed like cheating to get a few more points. I told myself that the day I would do a take, it would be beautiful and I would do it properly. I’m happy to have won with a new jump. »
This is for Kingsbury a 79e career victory on the World Cup circuit. He will have one last chance to increase that total before the end of the season when he hosts a dual mogul event on Saturday.
The 30-year-old admitted he set a goal early in the campaign to hit the 80-win plateau this winter.
“It was a reachable round number at the start of the season and I would have liked to have exceeded it, but I had a lot of second places. I am still satisfied with my season, insisted Kingsbury. It’s possible to get there tomorrow (Saturday). I will give it my all. I will empty the tank. The crystal globe will also be at stake. I approach this competition like all the others in parallel. »
Kingsbury also won their seventh and eighth world titles last month in Georgia.
Canadians Gabriel Dufresne, Julien Viel and Elliot Vaillancourt finished 12th, 13th and 14th respectively on Friday.
Among the women, the Frenchwoman Perrine Lafont won ahead of the Americans Jaelin Kauf and Tess Johnson. No Canadians took part in the competition.