Mikaël Kingsbury set to say goodbye as the GOAT
Just over a month after he added two more Olympic medals to his already overflowing trophy case, Mikaël Kingsbury will finish off his freestyle skiing career on his home hill.
The undisputed greatest moguls skier of all time is saying goodbye to his competitive career at the Canadian Freestyle Ski Championships at Sommet Saint Sauveur, the place where it all began 25 years ago.
From that eight-year-old who joyfully learned to ski the bumps and jumps to the 33-year-old whose name can be found all over the history books, Kingsbury has been on the most incredible ride.
He entered his first FIS World Cup event in January 2010 when he was just 17 years old. He stood on his first World Cup podium in December 2010, followed quickly that same month by his first World Cup victory.
Fast forward 16 years to January 2026. On home snow in Val St-Côme, Quebec, Kingsbury stood on a World Cup podium for the last time, celebrating his 100th career World Cup victory—the first male freestyle skier to ever reach that milestone. It was his 143rd World Cup podium in 169 starts on the circuit. If you do the math, he only missed 26 podiums throughout his entire World Cup career.
That success added up to him winning 29 Crystal Globes. Starting in 2011-12, Kingsbury won the overall World Cup title for moguls and all of freestyle skiing for nine straight seasons. The only thing that put a halt to his streak was an injury that took him out for most of the 2020-21 season. He went on to top the combined moguls/dual moguls standings each of the next four seasons.
Kingsbury was just as dominant a presence at the FIS World Championships, winning 15 medals in 16 starts. Nine of those were gold medals. In 2019, 2021, and 2023 he was the world champion of both moguls and dual moguls.
Of course, what we’ll most remember him for are the five Olympic medals he won, the most ever by a male freestyle skier.
It started with the silver medal in his Olympic debut at Sochi 2014, where he shared the podium with gold medallist teammate Alex Bilodeau. Four years later, at the peak of his dominance, Kingsbury claimed his Olympic crown at PyeongChang 2018. After another silver medal at Beijing 2022, he went to his fourth Olympic Games with two medal chances for the first time.
The men’s moguls event at Milano Cortina 2026 could not have been any closer. Kingsbury had to settle for the silver medal on a tiebreaker, after earning the same total score as gold medallist Cooper Woods. Fuelled by a desire to break Canada’s gold medal drought at the Games and become the first ever Olympic champion in men’s dual moguls, Kingsbury delivered one his finest performances ever.
But it’s not the images of him celebrating at the finish or with his eyes closed on the podium that will live on in most people’s memories. Instead, it’s the moments spent with his son Henrik, showing him how sweet an Olympic medal can taste, that will always remind us of the pleasure we had watching a kid become a king who fulfilled all his childhood dreams.
