Kawamura and Kingsbury claim victories on day 1 in Tremblant
Jan 08, 2022·Freestyle
After almost three weeks since the last competition of 2021 in Alpe d’Huez (FRA), the FIS Freestyle Ski Moguls World Cup was back in action on Saturday at Mont Tremblant (CAN) for the first of back-to-back competitions scheduled for this weekend. There in Quebec, the historical heartland of Canadian moguls skiing, Anri Kawamura (JPN) and Mikael Kingsbury (CAN) took big wins after an explosive showcase of world’s best freestyle skiing on a challenging “Flying Mile” course.
In the women’s event 17-year-old Kawamura dominated in the finals, first leading the way in Final 1 with 81.02 points, and then backing it up in Final 2 with 81.76 points. Kawamura stomped a huge run in the super final to snag her second win of the season and with Jakara Anthony (AUS) finishing in fifth place on the day, the Japanese skier took over the lead in the moguls World Cup standing.
After four moguls events so far in 2021/22, Kawamura now sits atop the World Cup standing with 309 points, with Anthony dropping down to second place with 285 points.
Following her horrifying crash in Alpe d’Huez, it was good to see Perrine Laffont (FRA) back in the starting gate. The reining World Cup champion showed some impressive skiing on Friday, comfortably reaching for the second spot on a day with 81.43 points.
Tess Johnson (USA) rounded out the women’s podium in third place with 79.25 points, scoring her second top-3 finish in 2021/22.
It was a pretty wild competition over on the men’s side, but at the end of the day it was once again Mikael Kingsbury (CAN), who reached for his third consecutive victory on his “home” venue in Tremblant. Kingsbury was a dominant force on Friday, leading all the way through qualifications to super final and stomping a massive score of 86.24 points for his third and final run.
Walter Wallberg (SWE) wrapped up the day behind Kingsbury in second place with 84.65 points, finishing on the podium for the second time this season.
Ikuma Horishima (JPN) completed the men’s podium in third place with 83.17 points, while also keeping his lead in the moguls standing. He sits atop the standing with 320 points, now only 28 points above Kingsbury.
The battle for World Cup points and national Olympic team spots in Tremblant continues tomorrow. Qualifications are set to start at 9:15 with finals once agains scheduled for 14:00 local time.
WATCH LIVE
Saturday
Eurosport 2 (Asia + Europe), CBC TV (Canada), CCTV (China), Viaplay (Denmark), V Sport+ (Finland), Arena 4+ (Hungary), JSPORT 1 (Japan), V Sport + (Norway), Polsat Sport News (Poland), Viaplay (Sweden), streaming on https://skiandsnowboard.live/ (USA), FIS Freestyle Youtube channel
QUICK LINKS:
Tremblant World Cup FIS data page (start lists, results, etc.)
)
