Weekend recap: Shiffrin crashes, Kingsbury soars
CBC
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Here's our weekly look at the top performances by Canada's Olympic athletes on Saturday and Sunday. But first, some news involving an international star.
Alpine skiing: Shiffrin crash costs her a big win
Mikaela Shiffrin was on the verge of becoming the first alpine skier ever to reach 100 World Cup wins when the American star was injured in a crash during Saturday's giant slalom race at Killington resort in Vermont.
Shiffrin led after the first run and had the finish line in sight on her final run when she lost an edge and went head-over-skis into the safety netting lining the course. She suffered a deep puncture wound on the right side of her abdomen but appeared to escape any other significant injuries, the U.S. ski team said. "Something stabbed me," Shiffrin said in a video she posted on social media. There's no timeline yet for her return.
A controversial new rule requires alpine skiers to wear airbags that deploy when they crash, but the special vests are only required for the downhill and the super-G — the fastest and most dangerous of the alpine disciplines. Serious injuries are far less common in the giant slalom and slalom.
Canada's Valerie Grenier finished ninth in the giant slalom — her first race since a devastating crash ended her season last January. Laurence St-Germain was a season-best seventh in Sunday's slalom.
Quebec's Mont-Tremblant was scheduled to host a pair of women's giant slaloms this coming weekend, but they were cancelled due to a lack of snow. The men will be at Colorado's Beaver Creek for the first downhill and super-G races of the season. Here's a look at the Canadians competing there.
Freestyle skiing: A special win for Kingsbury
World Cup moguls victories are almost routine for Canada's Mikaël Kingsbury, who came into the season opener in Finland with a record 90 of them alongside his eight world titles and 2018 Olympic gold medal. But Saturday's win was Kingsbury's first as a dad, and his three-month-old son Henrik was there for it. "It's so cool to have my family here and win in front of my kid," said Kingsbury, who called it a "top three" moment in his career.
WATCH | Kingsbury opens World Cup season in style in Finland:
Kingsbury won by a comfortable margin over Sweden's Walter Wallberg, who beat him for the Olympic gold in 2022, and Japan's Ikuma Horishima, who took the World Cup moguls championship from Kingsbury last season (Kingsbury retained the dual moguls and overall titles).
Canada's Maia Schwinghammer placed fourth in the women's event, matching the best World Cup moguls result of her career (she won a silver in dual moguls last year).
Curling: Homan wins another Slam
When a teenaged Chloe Primerano made her debut on the Canadian women’s hockey team last season, Jocelyne Larocque was often the steady force beside her on the blue line.
The Vancouver Canucks announced Friday that they have traded captain Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild.
Canada's Kevin Drury battled his way to a gold medal that left him in tears at a World Cup ski cross event on Friday in Val Thorens, France.
Soccer fans have accused FIFA of a "monumental betrayal" after latest prices for World Cup tickets began to circulate on Thursday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is “disappointed” that the main arena slated to host ice hockey at February’s Olympics isn’t yet completed with less than two months to go before the Games are scheduled to be played.
A two-year suspension from competitive swimming has forced Penny Oleksiak to answer questions about drug use, train by herself in public pools and defend her legacy as Canada’s most decorated female Olympian.
Hockey, one of the premier events at the Winter Olympics and one that is welcoming NHL players back for the first time in more than a decade, will take place on ice shorter than NHL-regulation size.
Summer McIntosh capped swimming’s U.S. Open with the event record in the women’s 200-metre butterfly on Saturday in Austin, Texas.
Some bronze medals are worth their weight in gold. Valerie Grenier's third-place finish in women's giant slalom at the Mont-Tremblant World Cup certainly fits that category.
The men’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. was going well for Canada until Pot 4.
The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., buzzed with activity and speculation on Thursday in advance of Friday’s all-important draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup.
By the time the management group for the Canadian men’s national hockey team emerges from marathon meetings on Tuesday, as much as 80 per cent of the roster going to Italy next February should be written in pen.