Moguls World Cup opens New Year in Calgary
Aug 31, 2018·Freestyle
Calgary (CAN) - The FIS Freestyle moguls World Cup tour returns to Calgary this weekend for what will be the 13th World Cup competition in the city where moguls made its Olympic debut as a demonstration sport back at the Calgary 1988 Olympic Winter Games. And, with just weeks to go before moguls competition makes its eighth appearance on the world’s stage at the PyeongChang 2018 Games, the stakes for this weekend’s event are as high as they’ve ever been in Calgary.
Competition finals in Calgary are slated to begin at 13:30 MST, preceded by the men’s qualifications at 11:05. However, due to a front forecasted to bring some snow or rain to Calgary on Saturday, the ladies’ qualifications have been moved forward to Friday, beginning at 12:25.
The Calgary course is one that has been kind to the host Canadians, historically speaking, with both the Canadian ladies and men placing at least one athlete on the podium in every one of the past eight seasons of competition at the venue.
On the ladies’ side, Justine Dufour-Lapointe leads the way for the Canadians with two victories and six total podiums in Calgary, including at the 2015/16 contest where she finished second ahead of teammate Andi Naude and just behind her sister Chloe Dufour-Lapointe in a Canadian sweep of the podium.
Over on the men’s side, Mikael Kingsbury has been absolutely dominant in Calgary, and is looking to maintain a run of seven straight podiums at the venue that includes six straight victories dating from the 2010/11 season through to 2015/16.
However, Kingsbury’s win streak was snapped last year by Matt Graham (AUS), as Graham and his Aussie teammate Britteny Cox rained on the Canadians’ parade by taking the respective men’s and ladies’ victories in what was one of the best days of 2016/17 for an Australian team that had loads of them with Cox winning the ladies’ crystal globe and Graham finishing second overall on the men’s side.
Though Cox started this season with a victory in Ruka, she has since fallen off slightly, placing 25th in the first competition at the last moguls World Cup in Thaiwoo (CHN), and then earning a fourth-place in the second competition there to leave her ranked fourth overall ahead of Saturday’s event. She’ll be looking for a repeat performance here in Calgary for a chance to regain the yellow World Cup leader’s bib.
Cox will have her work cut out for her, however, as the USA’s Jaelin Kauf has established a nice lead on the World Cup standings after back-to-back podiums in Thaiwoo, including a victory and a runner-up result. With a fifth in Ruka also to her name, Kauf has made every super final so far this season, and the 21-year-old has served notice that she could be the US team leader heading into PyeongChang 2018.
Second and third overall for the ladies are Yulia Galysheva (KAZ) and Andi Naude, both of whom also had back-to-back podiums in Thaiwoo as the same three ladies owned the Chinese stage. While Galysheva has struggled throughout her career in Calgary, Naude has made her way through to the six-athlete super final in four of five attempts at the venue, and should be counted on to do so once again this season.
For the men, Kingsbury is once again casting a massive shadow this season, winning all three competitions so far in 2017/18 and riding a streak of 10 straight victories that dates back to last season - the longest in the history of the men’s moguls World Cup and six wins back of Hannah Kearney for the all-time record.
Kingsbury has been a machine this season, and all signs suggest it’s going to take either a mistake on his part or a superhuman effort on the part of one of his competitors to knock off of top spot this weekend.
With a second-place and a third-place result so far this season and last season’s win in Calgary to his credit, Graham should once again have to best shot at being the one to topple Kingsbury. However, Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Reikherd has thus far been the second best skier on tour through three events, with a pair of runner-ups to Kingsbury so far, with his last result in Thaiwoo just 1.02 points back of Kingsbury’s.
With four moguls World Cup contests left before PyeongChang 2018, there is still plenty to be decided as the nations work to whittle down their prospective teams ahead of the Games, making the results of Saturday’s event in Calgary important far beyond the three spots on the podium. Expect the athletes of the moguls World Cup to step it up across the board in the final push for one of those coveted Olympic spots.
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