Laffont and Kingsbury take wins on Day 1 in Almaty

Mar 17, 2023·Freestyle

The first day of action at the FIS Freestyle Ski Moguls & World Cup finals in Almaty went down in extraordinary fashion, as Perrine Laffont (FRA) took her fifth consecutive win in the women’s event, while Mikael Kingsbury (CAN) snagged his seventh win of the season and the single moguls World Cup title along the way.

With the overcast weather throughout the qualification rounds, the conditions on course in Almaty eventually improved and the sport’s best were given a chance to deliver their best runs in first of back-to-back moguls competitions scheduled for this weekend in Kazakhstan. With plenty of spectacular runs already in the qualifications and a handful of athletes still fighting for overall top-3 spots, the finals were shaping up to be highly entertaining. And in fact, the first day of competition at Almaty’s Shymbulak Ski Resort didn’t disappoint…

Starting with women’s event Perrin Laffont came with an incredible performance to take her fifth win of the season including her two World Championships gold medals from Bakuriani. The 24-year-old won her career’s 29th World Cup competition on Friday to wrap up the women’s portion of the 2022/23 single moguls campaign on a high.

Laffont was on fire all day long, first coming with the highest score of the day in F1, just to back it up with another super solid run in the super final, while extending her winning streak to five consecutive victories.

Second spot on the day went to USA’s Jaelin Kauf, while her teammate Tess Johnson rounded out the podium in third place, for her first top-3 finish in 2022/23.

Despite opting out not to participate in the World Cup finals, after somehow a disappointing performance two weeks ago at the World Championships in Georgia, Jakara Anthony (AUS) finished the season on top of the single moguls World Cup standing, consequently claiming her career’s third World Cup title.

Over the course of six moguls competitions in 2022/23 Anthony claimed four win as well as one runner-up spot and finished the season with 480 points.

Friday’s winner Laffont finished the season in second place with 430 points, while racking up one victory and four top-3 finishes. However, with Anthony not competing in Almaty, and Kawamura sidelined due to her ankle injury, Laffont will be looking to take home some World Cup crystal globes as well, as she sits comfortably on top of both the dual moguls and overall moguls rankings.

With a superb performance on Friday, Jaelin Kauf managed to jumped into third place as she rounded out the women’s 2022/23 moguls podium, earning 341 points on the strength of her three top-3 spots in the last three moguls events.

Moving over to the men’s side of things, it was all about Mikael Kingsbury. After securing his career’s 22nd crystal globe already back in February at Deer Valley, the King of Moguls came into Friday’s competition with no pressure and only one goal in his mind - to showcase his best skiing. And that’s exactly what he did, leaving all his competition far behind in the super final. Kingsbury kept his composure clean through the bumps and sent it deep off the jumps, including a spectacular cork 720 truck driver at the bottom air, which he performed for the very first time in competition.

Unsurprisingly with this top-notch run Kingsbury won the competition in Almaty, claiming his seventh victory in 2022/23, taking home the moguls title with 540 points, while also securing the overall moguls World Cup crystal globe in the process. Now he only needs one more solid result to take everything there is to win on the 2022/23 World Cup tour and repeat his moguls hat-trick from last year.

Second place on the day went to Pavel Kolmakov (KAZ), who stepped things up a notch after a heartbreaking performance at the World Championships in Georgia, where he finished in fourth in both moguls and dual moguls competitions. Lifted by hellacious home crowd Kolmakov showed extremely solid skiing on Friday and grabbed his first top-3 finish in the 2022/23 season.

Matt Graham (AUS) rounded out the men’s podium in third place, for his fourth top-3 finish this season. Graham also finished the moguls campaign in the second overall spot, earning 336 points after six competitions staged in 2022/23.

Ikuma Horishima (JPN) finished the season in third place on the moguls World Cup standing on the strength of one victory and two top-3 spots.

With the 2022/23 World Cup season coming to a close this weekend, Ali Macuga (USA) and Filip Gravenfors (SWE) were handed out the Rookie of the Year awards, while the USA won the Moguls Nations Cup for the best performing team across the single moguls competitions this season.

The FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup action continues on Saturday, with the sixth and final dual moguls showdown set to close out the 2022/23 moguls World Cup campaign. Qualifications are scheduled for 11:15 local time with finals following up right after 14:30.

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