Laffont repeats and Kingsbury comes back on top in Thaiwoo’s dual moguls

Dec 15, 2019·Freestyle

The first dual moguls competition of the season took place on day 2 of the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup event with Perrine Laffont (FRA) and Mikael Kingsbury (CAN) coming on top of the field to cap off an exciting weekend of moguls action in China.

It was another perfect day in the premier Chinese ski resort in Thaiwoo, and following a big success of the first competition on Saturday, also the dual moguls event didn’t disappoint with plenty of exciting and tight head-to-head battles for one more competition of 2019 before everyone heads home for a holiday break.

In the ladies’ competition it was Perrine Laffont, who remains unbeaten so far in 2019/20 after taking her second of back-to-back victories on Sunday in Thaiwoo. In the big final heat Laffont faced Jaelin Kauf (USA), but the US skier crushed out in the middle section of the course while trying to close the gap and leaving Laffont with an easy run to the finish line.

“I have to admit that I’ve been struggling with the course this week,” said Laffont, “I could not quite find the right line and I was really stressed coming into first heat of the day. But then I skied well and gain some more confidence so I’m happy to finish with another victory today.”

Despite going down in the big final Kauf wrapped up the competition in Thaiwoo with an impressive second-place finish, hugely improving on her yesterday’s 18th place in the single moguls events.

It was the first podium of the season for Kauf, as she moved into second place in the women’s World Cup standing. However, after three competitions so far in 2019/20 Kauf sits over 150 points behind the current leader Laffont, who has exactly 300 points to her record for her three victories in Ruka and Thaiwoo.

Hannah Soar (USA) rounded out the women’s podium in third place for the best results in her World Cup career. The 20-year-old US skier came on top of the small final against 19-year-old up-and-comer from Japan - Kisara Sumiyosh, who also impressed with her skiing on Sunday and made it into top-10 for the second time this season.

Over on the men’s side of the event Mikael Kingsbury was back to his winning way, confidently climbing the ladder heat after heat to finally face Benjamin Cavet in the big final. And despite all the efforts from the French skier, Kingsbury was just unbeatable on the day winning the final heat with 88.34 points to Cavet’s 84.80.

“You can see the level is very high this season,” said, “Ikuma (Horishima), Ben (Cavet) and other guys have been pushing me hard, so it’s nice to close out the weekend on top of the podium.”

Cavet finished the competition in second place for his second spot on the podium this weekend.

In men’s small final it was Saturday’s winner Ikuma Horishima (JPN), who came out victorious over Thomas Gerken Schofield (GBR), completing the podium in third place for his third World Cup top-3 of the 2019/20 season.

And while Gerken Schofield could not quite match the speed of Horishima in the small final, capping off the competition in fourth place is by far his career’s best World Cup result.

In the World Cup ranking Kingsbury is leading the field with 280 points after three competitions. Second in the standing Horishima has 240 points, while Cavet sitting in third is loosing almost 120 points to Kingsbury.

The FIS Freestyle Ski moguls World Cup is heading for a holiday break now and will come back in the new year, with the next competition slated to go down in Tremblant (CAN) on January 25.

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