Kawamura goes back-to-back, Walberg claims career’s first in Val St Come duals
Jan 29, 2023·Freestyle
A hugely successful two-day showcase of the best of freestyle skiing wrapped up on Saturday in Val St. Come (CAN), where the dual moguls competition closed out an epic FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup event in Quebec in a truly spectacular fashion. There, Anri Kawamura (JPN) claimed her second win this weekend on the women’s side, while Walter Wallberg (SWE) stormed to his career’s first World Cup win over in the men’s event.
Kawamura was simply on fire on Saturday, confidently climbing her way up in the competition’s brackets and edging the likes of her teammates Hinako Tomitaka (JPN) and Rino Yanagimoto (JPN), as well as Jaelin Kauf (USA) on her way to the super final, where for the second time this season she faced Perrine Laffont (FRA).
Once there, Kawamura showed no sings of slowing down and once again the 18-year-old raced down the challenging course in Val St. Come, while keeping her skis’ tips pointed down, acing the middle section and launching it from both airs with style.
And while Laffont tried to showcase her best skiing after missing out on the podium in single moguls event on Friday, she couldn’t quite match the big final performance from Kawamura and at the end of the day it was the Japanese riders who came away victorious and snagged her first second victory this weekend and her third straight win overall.
With Kawamura in top spot, Laffont finished the competition in second place, which was her sixth top-3 finish in seven competitions staged so far in the 2022/23 World Cup campaign.
After a handful of solid performances this season, Makayla Gerken Schofield (GBR) stepped things up a notch on Saturday and claimed her career’s first World Cup podium, as she rounded out the women’s top-3 in third place after winning the small final matchup against Jaelin Kauf (USA).
With the win on Saturday Kawamura extended her lead in the dual moguls World Cup ranking, while also jumping in first place in the overall moguls World Cup classification.
Things were quite interesting also on the men’s side with plenty of tight and interesting clashes going down throughout the day. Also here, the male athletes kept on pushing their limits, which resulted in some spectacular crowd-pleasing matchups.
At the end of a thrilling evening in Val St. Come it was Walter Wallberg, who completed a perfect weekend as the 2022 Olympic champion backed up his runner-up spot from Friday with his career’s first World Cup win.
On Saturday Walter Wallberg was a man on a mission, besting the likes of Gabriel Dufresne (CAN), Julien Viel (CAN), Benjamin Cavet (FRA) and Matt Graham (AUS), before facing the home crowd hero Mikael Kingsbury in the super final.
There, Wallberg remained calm, cool and in control, keeping his turns tidy, his speed up and forcing Kingsbury to make a huge mistake just ahead of the final air jump. Consequently it was Wallberg, who came away victorious, snagging his very first World Cup win on the venue, where back in 2017 he claimed his first World Cup podium. With the win on Saturday Wallberg also moved atop the dual moguls standing with just three more competitions remaining in 2022/23.
With Wallberg in top spot, Kingsbury finished the day in second place and his 110th career World Cup top-3 finish.
Filip Gravenfors (SWE) rounded out the podium in third place after edging out Matt Graham (AUS) in the small final matchup.
The FIS Freestyle World Cup tour now moves south to the iconic venues at Deer Valley (USA), where moguls, dual moguls and aerials competitions are scheduled to take place next week, February 2-4.
QUICK LINKS:
Val St Come World Cup FIS data page (start lists, results, etc.)
Results: WOMEN DUAL MOGULS / MEN DUAL MOGULS
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