Owens leads US women's dual moguls sweep while Kingsbury completes the men's double
Feb 06, 2021·Freestyle
The moguls World Cup portion of the 2021 Intermountain Healthcare Freestyle International at Deer Valley Resort closed on Friday with one of the wildest and most purely entertaining competitions we’ve seen this season, where Kai Owens (USA) lead a US sweep of the podium for her first career victory in the women’s competition, and Mikael Kingsbury (CAN) completed a gutsy comeback performance by taking the Deer Valley double for the men in dual moguls competition.
16 year-old Owens shows veteran-like poise to lead US sweep
Thursday’s single moguls competition was something of a disappointment for the host US squad, as they managed to place only one athlete in the finals across both the women’s and men’s competitions. However, that was all forgotten by the end of the day on Friday, after the US women completed their first home-soil podium sweep since the 2012/13 season.
The sweep was lead by the USA’s lone finals athlete from Thursday, as 16 year-old Kai Owens followed up her career-best fourth place finish in the single moguls with a huge leap up onto the top of the dual moguls podium on Friday for her maiden World Cup victory.
While it was a crash-filled day of competition as the world’s best moguls skiers pushed their limits in some tough conditions on the snowy Champion Run course, Owens remained calm, cool and in control throughout the day, keeping her turns tidy, her speed up and her wits about her as others struggled.
In the big final Owens was matched up against her teammate Hannah Soar, and while the two were neck-and-neck through the first jump, Soar began to lose control shortly after landing, eventually skiing out of line briefly in the middle section. Owens, meanwhile, kept her tips pointed down, acing the middle section and launching a stylish d-spin on the final jump before skiing across the line to victory.
“It’s unreal, I’m feeling like I’m on cloud nine right now," said a thrilled Owens. "I’m so lucky to share the podium with my teammates. I put everything I had in today, so I’m just really feeling honoured and excited to be here."
The US sweep of the podium was assured before the big final event went down after Tess Johnson won her small final matchup against Yulia Galysheva of Kazakhstan. While Galysheva may have been skiing with an injury after appearing to be in some discomfort after her quarter final heat - making things a little easier for Johnson in the small final - there’s no denying the monumental day the 20 year-old US skier had.
That’s because, in her quarterfinal heat, Johnson was able to beat France’s Perrine Laffont, the World Cup leader and the winner of every event in 2020/21 before Friday’s competition. Despite having to settle for third on the day, Johnson pulled off what was likely Friday’s toughest achievement by besting Laffont, making her third-place finish one of distinction.
Speaking of Laffont; despite missing the podium for the first time this season, the 22 year-old Frenchwoman’s fifth-place finish was still more than enough for her to lock down the 2020/21 moguls World Cup crystal globe. Now with 445 points on the season, Laffont is 175 points clear of her next-closest competitor Anri Kawamura (JPN) with just one event to go, assuring her of her fourth-straight moguls title.
Kawamura finished 14th on the day and appeared to injure herself after hooking an edge on the takeoff of the bottom jump in her 1/8 final heat, landing heavily on her side. We wish Anri all the best and hope to see her back in the start gate before the end of the season.
Kingsbury completes the ‘Deer Valley double’ for the fourth time in his career
In the men’s competition we saw Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury earning his 65th career World Cup victory, and in doing so the 28 year-old was able to complete the Deer Valley double of back-to-back wins in the moguls and dual moguls competitions for the fourth time in his career. The fact that he was able to do so in his comeback competitions after missing the first two months of the season with broken vertebrae makes his performance even more impressive.
It was by no means an easy victory, however, as twice on his way to the big final Kingsbury finished heats that appeared to be toss-ups, with both Oskar Elofsson (SWE) and Benjamin Cavet (FRA) matching Kingsbury turn for turn and besting him with faster times. However, Kingsbury ultimately prevailed in both heats thanks in no small part to a superior jump package that included an off-axis 1080 on the first air.
In the big final Kingsbury would see his toughest matchup yet, as he faced off against his long-time friendly rival Matt Graham of Australia who, even more so than Elofsson and Cavet before him, pushed Kingsbury to his limit. Still, it wouldn’t be quite enough, and Kingsbury would earn his ninth career victory at Deer Valley in World Cup competition.
“It’s another great day for me,” Kingsbury said, still breathing hard after his big final run, “I dreamed of having a good comeback and winning yesterday, but today I just wanted to be able to ski well. My strategy was I wanted to keep it safe and clean up until the big final. All my other heats the guys were a little bit faster than me, but in the last one against Matt I was able to push it. It’s just a blessing to know that my back is healed and I’m able to compete against the best in the world again.”
While Graham wasn’t able to dethrone ‘the King’ on Friday, his performances in Deer Valley (which also included a third-place finish in Thursday’s individual moguls event) did have some exciting consequences, as the 26 year-old now has 289 points to sit atop the men’s World Cup leaderboard with just one event left in the 2020/21 World Cup season.
Just behind Graham on the standings is Cavet, the second place finisher from Thursday who flip-flopped with Graham by finishing third on Friday. Cavet squared off with Japan’s Kosuke Sugimoto in the small final, winning the heat easily when Sugimoto skied off course early in the middle section of the run. Cavet now has 271 points and he, along with Ludvig Fjallstrom (SWE), Ikuma Horishima (JPN), Brodie Summers (AUS) and long-shot Kingsbury all still have a mathematical chance of overtaking Graham in the crystal globe race at the season finale in Almaty (KAZ).
Action in Deer Valley Resort continues on Saturday with the aerials competition. Qualifications begin at 12:20 local time, followed by finals at 14:30.
Watch aerials finals live on the FIS YouTube channel, Olympic Channel (broadcast), Olympic Channel (Streaming), Peacock, Eurosport Player Europe, Belarus 5, CBC Sports Streaming, CCTV 5, CZ TZ, TV2 SPXRT, Arena 4, RAI Sport, Polsat News, SSR Zwei
QUICK LINKS:
Deer Valley data page (start lists, live scoring, results)
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