While the Canadian Freestyle Ski Team seems to be able to win medals anywhere, it was nice for athletes to compete at home before thousands of fans, family and friends at Mont Gabriel, Quebec this past weekend —even if it was minus 20 C.
The weekend opened with the dual moguls competition, and all eyes on Mikael Kingsbury for good reason. He defeated all challengers to reach the finals, which he easily took over American Jeremy Cota — and now stands undefeated this season with three gold medals in three events.
Sergey Volkov of Russia edged Sho Kashima of the U.S. for the bronze medal.
Other Canadians in the running included Pierre-Alexandre in eighth, Simon Lemieux in 12th, Marc-Antoine Gagnon in 13th, Cedric Rochon in 15th and Whistler's Eddie Hicks in 19th.
In the women's event, Justine Dufour-Lapointe advanced all the way to the finals where she faced Hannah Kearney of the U.S. — the most dominant woman in the sport today. Since her win at the 2010 Olympics Kearney has won 16 gold medals out of a possible 21, and going into Mont Gabriel her streak was seven straight wins.
Whistler's Chelsea Henitiuk got off to a quiet start this season, but had a solid day to make the small finals where she lost her dual for the bronze medal to Ekaterina Stolyarova of Russia. It was Henitiuk's best World Cup result to date.
In the aerials competition, Olivier Rochon had his career-best day as well, placing second at his home mountain.
