Medals of every colour for Canadian moguls skiers in Japan
Mikael Kingsbury and Philippe Marquis finished first and second while Andi Naude placed third as Canada scooped up one of each coloured medal at the moguls World Cup in Tazawako, Japan on Saturday.
Kingsbury got the victory with a whopping 89.99 points, thanks to top scores by a significant margin in the turns and airs. Marquis had the second-best scores in both areas to help him to 86.37 points. France’s Benjamin Cavet was third with 85.62 points.
“The moguls were not easy today but it kept getting better with every run,” said Kingsbury, who is guaranteed his sixth consecutive Crystal Globe as overall World Cup champion. “I followed the plan and did a cork 1080 on the top air and a cork 720 on the bottom. It was the first time that I did it this way in single moguls competition and it earned me a better air score. I think that I will do the same again in the future.”
Kingsbury now has six wins in eight World Cups this season, giving him 39 career victories and 60 career podiums. It’s also his fourth career win in five starts in Tazawako. Kingsbury now stands alone atop the career World Cup wins list for freestyle skiing.
Marquis has just gotten better as the season has gone along, earning his third straight moguls medal after not winning any in the first four World Cup stops. He now sits fourth in the moguls World Cup standings.
It is the third straight week the two Canadian men have shared the podium and directly follows their gold-bronze finish at the PyeongChang 2018 test event of the Bokwang Snow Park in South Korea.
“I had a great day today,” said Marquis. “It feels great to win a second medal in a row after my (bronze) at PyeongChang last week, where I also skied very well, but it feels even better to know that we have made the right decisions. The snow was really sticky today. We had to be strategic and it paid off.”
Naude is having a career year, especially in the second half of the season. Her first podium of the 2016-17 season came in January on home soil in Val St-Come, when she finished third in a Canadian women’s podium sweep. Since then she’s landed a dual moguls podium in Deer Valley and a bronze medal at the PyeongChang test event.
Naude’s bronze medal finish in Japan came with a score of 76.37. The silver went to France’s Perrine Laffont (78.36), while Australia’s Britteny Cox won with 78.57.
The Canadians will be back on the course Sunday for the dual moguls competition. There remains just one more World Cup stop this season, taking the team to China next week before the world championships begin in Sierra Nevada, Spain on March 8.
