Canada Proving Power in Moguls
The Canadian National Mogul team repeated their performance from last weekend and won three medals yesterday at the World Cup of Krieschberg, Austria. This time around the team was led by 2010 Olympic gold medallist Alex Bilodeau who grabbed silver just ahead of teammate Mikael Kingsbury who finished in third place. Justine Dufour-Lapointe matched her season opening start by capturing bronze for a consecutive week.
“All of this just shows me there’s still place for improvement,” said Bilodeau who took most of last season off. “I don’t know if it’s that I’m not really comfortable with racing, it’s been a while, I don’t know if that’s the case, but there’s still stuff I want to improve. I think that with Mike (Michel Hamelin) I have the best coach in the world, so I should be able to work with him over the Christmas break to improve before the next race.”
The 20-year-old Kingsbury, the reigning Crystal Globe winner, just lost out in a semifinal dual against Bilodeau.
“Alex and I went pretty all out in our dual, with two big back fulls on top,” said Kingsbury. “I think Alex blew out a little and I kept going, but then I caught an edge before the final air and went forward, I think I did a front flip on the bottom air, I’m not too sure. Losing control like that is not the kind of thing I do normally, but we were going all out, just a little too fast for both of us.”
The medal was the 16th consecutive FIS Freestyle World Cup podium for Deux-Montagnes, Que.’s Kingsbury, who retains the yellow bib, although he is now tied in points with Bilodeau after two competitions this season.
“That’s pretty crazy, it’s consistency I think. I’m happy, I don’t think there’s anything magic, to wining 16 medals in a row, I’m just training to do my run every week,” he said.
