(Almaty) Mikael Kingsbury gave himself a chance to achieve a goal set before the start of the freestyle skiing season.
The “king” of the Mughals was in a class of his own on Friday. Kingsbury easily won the men’s singles event at the World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Already sure of the crystal globe in the discipline and in the general classification, the freestyle skier from Deux-Montagnes earned a score of 85.67 in the Super Final. He bested his closest pursuer, local favorite Pavel Kolmakov, by 6.95 points.
“When I was at the top of the course, I heard Pavel had a mark of 78. I knew I needed a copy and paste of the final,” he tells Kingsbury by video. I knew I could improve my landings a bit on both jumps, Which I did. That’s what increased my score from 83 to 85.
Sometimes these races are more difficult when the door is wide open. You will fall back a lot. But in my experience, I’ve already tried this. You just have to achieve your descent and don’t imagine that it will be an easy victory. »
Australian Matt Graham finished on the podium with a score of 78.42.
Kingsbury used a jump for the first time in competition, performing “cork trucker 720” on the second jump, instead of the traditional “cork 1080”. This is a double corkscrew rotation with a ski spoon grip in shaft position.
He made this decision because he felt the landing on the second jump was flatter than usual.
“Knowing that I can do it well and go into eights with that, it becomes a jump that I can reuse when landing more difficult,” Kingsbury confirmed. The difficulty score is about the same as 1080.
“It took me a while to understand the value of the catch. I was never fond of taking singles because it seemed like cheating to get a few more points. I told myself that the day I do, it will be beautiful and I will do it right. I am happy to win a new jump. »
This is for Kingsbury a 79H Career winning on the World Cup circuit. He’ll have one last chance to increase that total before the end of the season when he hosts a pole vault event on Saturday.
The 30-year-old admitted he scored early in the campaign to hit the plateau of 80 wins this winter.
“It was a reachable number at the start of the season and I would have liked to have gone over it, but I had a lot of second places. I’m still satisfied with this season,” Kingsbury insisted. “It’s possible to get there tomorrow (Saturday). I’ll give it everything I’ve got. I’ll unload The reservoir. The crystal globe will also be at stake. I treat this competition like all others in parallel. »
Kingsbury also won his seventh and eighth title last month in Georgia.
Canadians Gabriel Dufresne, Julien Vail and Elliot Vaillancourt finished 12th, respectivelyH13H and 14HFriday.
Among the women, France’s Perrine Lafont beat the Americans, Gailyn Kauff and Tess Johnson. No Canadian participated in the competition.
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