The FIS Freestyle World Cup gets its tricks on this weekend in Font Romeu (FRA) for the second Slopestyle competition of the season and in Calgary for the third Moguls event.
Moguls:
When you talk about Moguls, you are talking about Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury, the greatest Moguls skier of all time.
He’s the Olympic champ from PyeongChang and the seven-time defending World Cup champion. What about this season? Well, there have been two Moguls events and one Dual Moguls competition and he has won them all.
In fact, Kingsbury has won four World Cup events in a row and has a streak of 22 World Cups in a row – Moguls and Dual Moguls – in which he has won a medal, going back to the 2016-17 season. He’s also won six times in Calgary, the site of this week’s events. Wow!
Behind Kingsbury this season have been Benjamin Cavet (FRA) and Ikuma Horishima (JPN) with silvers and Walter Wallberg (SWE) and Dmitriy Reikherd (KAZ) with bronzes.
The women’s Moguls situation is more competitive, but American Jaelin Kauf has won two of the three events – one Moguls and one Dual Moguls – held so far. France’s Perrine Laffont won the season opener and is the only one to win a medal in each of the three women’s competitions held so far.
Australia Brittney Cox won in Calgary last season, beating Laffont, but Laffont won the season title over Cox by 607-561, with Kauf third (467).
The women will compete on Friday and the men on Saturday (12th). Look for results here.
Slopestyle:
Competition in Font Romeu is scheduled for Thursday through Saturday, with the finals on the 12th for both men and women.
The only prior Slopestyle event held this season was back in November, at Stubai (AUT), with Henrik Harlaut (SWE) winning his first World Cup Slopestyle gold (and third career World Cup title), ahead of Mac Forehand (USA) and Ferdinand Dahl (NOR). This will be the second of six scheduled Slopestyle events in 2018-19, with Swiss Andri Ragettli the defending World Cup champion in the men’s division.
The women’s event in Stubai was won by 16-year-old Kelly Sildaru (EST), beating Swiss Sarah Hoefflin and Mathilde Gremaud.
In fact, Sildaru is working on a four-meet win streak that includes the 2018 World Junior Championships in Slopestyle and Halfpipe, the Stubai Slopestyle title and a win in the Copper Mountain World Cup in Halfpipe. In fact, in her international career – which only dates back to September of 2016, she has won five Slopestyle events without a loss. Remember, she’s 16!
Sweden’s Jennie-Lee Burmansson was last season’s World Cup winner, ahead of Norway’s Johanne Killi and American Caroline Claire.
Can Sildaru keep streaking? Look for results here.
