Moguls GOAT Kingsbury goes for a quadruple double at the world championships
CBC
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March Madness is a registered trademark of the NCAA, but you could argue that the winter Olympic sports world is even madder than college basketball right now.
This month has already brought us the world championships in bobsleigh, skeleton and both long- and short-track speed skating. The women's curling world title will be awarded this weekend, while figure skating, freestyle skiing and snowboarding will also complete their worlds by the end of March. Like they say: in like a lion… out like a lion.
For today, let's focus on the freestyle ski and snowboard worlds in Switzerland, where qualifying is underway and medals will be up for grabs starting Wednesday through March 30 in events such as moguls, aerials, halfpipe, big air, slopestyle, ski cross and snowboard cross.
These world championships are held only in odd-numbered years, so they're the last for this group of athletes before next year's Winter Olympics. In 2023 in Georgia (the country, not the U.S. state) Canadians won nine medals, matching the United States for third place in the overall count behind Austria (13) and Switzerland (10).
Seven of Canada's medals came on the ski side, including all three of its golds. The great Mikaël Kingsbury swept the men's moguls and dual moguls titles for the third time in a row, while Brendan Mackay won the men's halfpipe for the first time. Megan Oldham joined Kingsbury as a multi-medallist, taking silver in the women's slopestyle and bronze in the big air.
Kingsbury will be Canada's main character again this week as he goes for an incredible fourth consecutive moguls/dual moguls double. Don't bet against it, because the 2018 Olympic champ and two-time Olympic silver remains at the top of his game at age 32. Kingsbury won nine of his 16 World Cup starts this season (and added four silver medals), extending his all-time wins record to 99 and his Crystal Globe collection to 29 as he swept the men's moguls, dual moguls and overall titles.
That's not to say the moguls GOAT will go unchallenged this week. Kingsbury has a worthy adversary in Japan's Ikuma Horishima, the 2017 double world champion who clipped Kingsbury in a tight race for the World Cup moguls title last season for his first Crystal Globe. Horishima, 27, was the runner-up in all three points chases this season, though none of them were really close.
In qualifying today, Kingsbury placed second to Sweden's Filip Gravenfors, who was third in the World Cup overall standings. Horishima placed fourth in qualifying, and Canada's Julien Viel was fifth after earning a silver and a bronze on tour this season.
Canadian Maia Schwinghammer was fourth in women's qualifying. She won a gold and two bronze on the World Cup circuit this season to finish third in the regular moguls standings and fourth overall.
The men's and women's moguls finals are on Wednesday, starting at 6:30 a.m. ET. The dual moguls finals are Friday at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Canada's other big events this week are the men's and women's ski cross, which the country has traditionally done quite well in at the Olympics. Surprisingly, no Canadians reached the individual podiums at the 2023 worlds, though Reece Howden and Marielle Thompson each placed fourth in their four-person finals before pairing up for a silver in the mixed team event.
Howden ranks second in the men's World Cup standings after earning his fifth victory of the season and adding a silver last weekend in Ontario. Kevin Drury is sixth after taking bronze in both of those competitions.
Thompson seemed poised to repeat as women's World Cup champion after winning three consecutive starts in February to get to five victories on the season. But the 2014 Olympic champ and 2022 Olympic silver medallist tailed off before suffering a season-ending knee injury two weeks ago.
