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Mogul team repeats podium hat trick

Another event, another three medals for the Canadian mogul team. The only rare thing about that number last week was the fact that none of them was gold.
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Another event, another three medals for the Canadian mogul team. The only rare thing about that number last week was the fact that none of them was gold.

Olympic champion Alex Bilodeau seemed to have the gold medal in the bag when he lost control in his final dual against Bryon Wilson of the U.S., bumping him back to second place.

"You need to be on that course, when you go faster your chances and doubling and quadrupling of making mistakes," said Bilodeau. "I think we were going pretty fast today, and that was my strategy all along, but I also made mistakes."

In a way a silver medal was beyond what Bilodeau could have hoped for after squeaking through the qualifiers. He acknowledged that he was still a little rusty after taking off most of last season to train and prepare for the upcoming world championships and this Olympic qualification season.

"I got a pretty good gift in the morning," he said. "I didn't ski well in qualifiers, but I got to go to finals and I made the best out of it.

"All of this shows me there's still room for improvement. I don't know if it's that I'm not really comfortable with racing. It's been a while. "I don't know if that's the case but there's still stuff I want to improve. I think that with Mike (Michel Hamelin) I have the best coach in the world, so I should be able to work with him over the Christmas break to improve before the next race."

That said, Bilodeau is now two-for-two on the moguls circuit, winning two silver medals.

Mikael Kingsbury won the first World Cup dual moguls contest, but was bumped out by Bilodeau in the semi-finals to face teammate Philippe Marquis in a battle for third place. He won that contest to take the bronze medal - his 16th medal in a row.

"That's pretty crazy," he said. "I'm happy. I don't think there's anything magic to winning 16 medals in a row, I'm just training to do my run every week."

Marquis placed fourth on the day, Marc-Antoine Gagnon placed fifth and Cedric Rochon 10th. Pascal Oliver Gagne was 26th.

In the women's race, American skier Heather McPhie extended her winning streak to two with a win over teammate Heidi Kloser in the final dual. Justine Dufour-Lapointe beat Australia's Britteny Cox to win the bronze medal. Chloe Dufour-Lapointe finished her day in sixth, Whistler's Chelsea Henitiuk cracked the top 10 once again to place ninth, Audrey Robichaud was 11th, Andi Naude was 13th and Maxime Dufour-Lapointe 16th.

The moguls team is on a short break before the season resumes at Lake Placid, New York on Jan. 17-19.

The aerials team and reigning World Cup Crystal Globe winner Olivier Rochon will start their season on Jan. 5 in Changchun, China.