(Saint-Côme) Elliot Vaillancourt somehow saved the honor of the Canadian delegation at the Moguls World Cup in Val-St-Côme after Mikaël Kingsbury fell for a rare time.
Kingsbury, who was ranked No. 1 in the world after seven straight podiums, including four victories since the start of the season, missed his landing on the first jump of his descent in the final, depriving him of a place in the super final, where Vaillancourt found himself the sole representative of the maple leaf.
Starting penultimate, the young 24-year-old skier offered the best descent of the day so far, collecting 82.37 points from the judges, ensuring him at worst a silver medal.
The Swede Walter Wallberg relegated him to the second step of the podium after a very high level descent, which earned him 84.92 points.
His compatriot Filip Gravenfors (77.70) completed the podium.
Kingsbury finally finished in 13e place. Louis-David Chalifoux, seventh, and Gabriel Dufresne, 12e, had also reached the final. Julien Viel (23e), Samuel Goodison (26e), Ryan Portello (29e), Sam Cordell (35e) failed to qualify. Joey Dubuc and Charles Beaulieu did not complete the course in qualifying.
In the World Cup rankings, Kingsbury slips to second place in singles with 340 points, 10 less than the Japanese Ikuma Horishima, fourth Friday on the Alexandre-Bilodeau track. In the general ranking, Kingsbury is still first at 600 points, but Horishima has moved closer to 530, ahead of Wallberg (408) and Gravenfors (382).
Canadian women excluded
Among the women, no Canadian reached the super final. Maia Schwinghammer, second after qualifying, stalled midway and finished in 15the rank. Berkley Brown (eighth) and Laurianne Desmarais-Gilbert (12th)e) also saw their working day end in the final.
The event was won by Australian and reigning Olympic champion Jakara Anthony (82.01), a seventh victory in eight races. She beat the American Jaelin Kauf (74.87) and the Japanese Hinako Tomitaka (74.19).
Jessica Linton (17)e) and Ashley Koehler (18e) stopped in qualifying.
Jakara obviously retains her yellow jerseys in singles and the general ranking, but is now ahead of Kauf in singles, who rose to second place ahead of Japanese Rino Yaganimoto in both rankings. Schwinghammer retained his 10e place in general.
The Val-St-Côme World Cup will continue on Saturday with the parallel moguls event.