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Grief and greatness mark historic year in sports
Loss of athletes overshadows record accomplishments by national teams
by Andrew Mitchell
Page 3 of 10
• In freestyle moguls, Mikael Kingsbury won the overall Crystal Globe in moguls after appearing on the podium 13 times last season. With his win at the World Cup finals in 2011, his medal streak through 2012 and podiums at the first two events of this season, Kingsbury will head into January with a 16-medal streak. More impressive, this is only the 20-year-old's third season on the World Cup tour, and he's already earned 23 World Cup medals! On the women's side, Justine Dufour-Lapointe led the team with eight medals last season, including six silver medals behind Hannah Kearney of the U.S. She's also started off this season with medals in both events to bring her career medal total to 14 since she joined the World Cup tour for 2011.
• For the freestyle aerials team, which has struggled after the retirements of top athletes — and a head injury to world champion Warren Shouldice that would later force him to retire — all of the team's hopes rested on the shoulders of Olivier Rochon — a 22-year-old former gymnast who was actually suspended in 2011 after violating the team's code of conduct. He came back humbled and ready to jump, and succeeded in reaching the podium five times last season. He won his first World Cup medal, then his first World Cup gold and then the overall Crystal Globe. He's back in action this weekend on Jan. 5.
• 2012 was a landmark year for Nordic sports, with the cross-country team posting its best season in history with a total of 14 medals, over three times as many as the previous high of four. Devon Kershaw led the team with six podiums, while Alex Harvey added three medals and Len Valjas two. Chandra Crawford made the podium twice for the women's team, with Crawford teaming up with Perianne Jones to win a bronze in a team sprint event. Overall, the team placed sixth on the Nations Cup circuit, Cross Country Canada's highest finish yet.
So far the team has just one podium to lead off the start of the 2012-2013 season, but athletes are close and are getting closer.
One of the biggest and least expected results for Canada's Nordic skiers was in the sport of biathlon as Jean-Philippe Le Guellec won the men's sprint event on Dec. 1 to make national history. Not only was it his first podium appearance, he also became the first Canadian male to place or win at a World Cup biathlon race. It also marked the first time that a Canadian has won a biathlon event since Myriam Bedard won two gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer in 1994.
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