Moguls skier Mikaël Kingsbury wins so often it’s getting ridiculous
Update: Kingsbury becomes all-time moguls World Cup wins leader.
Mikaël Kingsbury wins everything.
He has 28 World Cup victories in only 61 events. That’s a winning percentage of .459 against fields as large as 50. The Toronto Blue Jays’ win rate this regular season was .574. And they have a 50/50 chance every time.
Ok, apples to oranges, mangoes to blueberries. How about this: Kingsbury wins a World Cup medal 75% of the time. At World Championships? Six for six. He also has an Olympic medal.
Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury skis in the second run of the men’s moguls finals at the Sochi Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
RELATED: Mikaël Kingsbury ties World Cup wins record with 28th career victory
The Quebec-native has won the Crystal Globe (awarded to the most-dominant freestyle skier) the past four seasons. So many times his mom Julie jokes about needing a bigger mantle.
Which is true…he’s the Crystal Kid:
Photo: Mikael Kingsbury Twitter
On the night of a final he’s usually top-ranked and last to ski so he watches his opponents on the live feed and then chooses how hard he needs to go. For real.
“For me it’s to know my limit, to know exactly where the fastest and the highest I can ski a course to the point if I go just a little bit faster I won’t be able to get down to the bottom,” says Kingsbury. “I try to find that point and when I compete I take just a little step back.”
Mikael Kingsbury
He calls this a strategy, comments on his ‘intelligence’ in competition. In reality, Mikaël Kingsbury’s ‘very good’ is just better than everyone’s ‘very best’.
For 2015-16 the next major accomplishment is inches away.
In Japan at the end of last season Kingsbury tied the record (28) for most World Cup victories. He’ll become sole record-holder before long, “I’ll make sure that it will happen it’s just a matter of time,” says Kingsbury, which really doesn’t sound cocky, only assured.
Kingsbury won his 28th World Cup event in Tazawako, Japan in March 2015.
This summer he went to Whistler three times, turned 23, and had ‘one of the best camps of his life’ in Australia, on a mean-sounding mountain called ‘Perisher’.
He worked on his strength, for balance on the moguls. To push that ‘very good’ more out of reach. “Those records and those things are not the stuff that I think about when I’m skiing,” he says.
Still, outside competition Kingsbury confesses to like statistics. When he eventually exceeds Edgar Grospiron, he’ll do it much sooner. The Frenchman arrived at 28 after seven winning seasons, Kingsbury needed only five. Notwithstanding the fact dual moguls didn’t happen in Grospiron’s era, Kingsbury was only 22-years-old when he met the mark, while Grospiron was almost 26.
“I know I’m going to continue to ski for a while so my goal is to put those records maybe one day untouchable,” says Kingsbury.
Get familiar with the Crystal Kid, he’ll be winning for a while. The World Cup moguls season begins December 12 in Ruka, Finland.
