Kingsbury, Canadian moguls teammates wrap up season titles
CBC Sports | Posted: March 3, 2019 3:36 PM | Last Updated: March 3, 2019
Reigning Olympic champ captures 8th straight Crystal Globe, keys Canada's Nations Cup win
As a thick fog cancelled the final men's World Cup moguls event of the season, it was time for Mikaël Kingsbury and his teammates to celebrate.
Canada finished atop the FIS standings to earn the Nations Cup while Kingsbury attained the most points for his eighth career Crystal Globe. The 26-year-old Kingsbury from Deux-Montagnes, Que., won the season title for an eighth consecutive year in a landslide victory over Japan's Ikuma Horishima, outscoring his rival 825-517.
"It's always an incredible feeling; each time feels like I'm winning it for the first time," Kingsbury told Freestyle Canada from Shymbulak, Kazakhstan. "It's like hoisting the Stanley Cup. It's the top award in our sport and also the most difficult to win."
Kingsbury is looking forward to returning home and celebrating with family and friends.
"I'll take some time off to relax," he said, "then get back into training. I'm as motivated as ever."
Dominant season
In his 100th career start on Saturday, Kingsbury finished second to Horishima, a week after defeating his Japanese opponent at a World Cup dual event in Tazawako, Japan, where he captured gold on back-to-back days.
WATCH | Mikaël Kingsbury's silver-medal performance:
He finishes the season with 56 career World Cup victories and seven in eight starts this season.
After claiming Olympic gold last February and being named the 2018 recipient of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's athlete of the year, Kingsbury opened this season with back-to-back World Cup wins.
His perfect start to the season came to an end on Jan. 18 in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he failed to finish atop the podium in five starts, placing fifth.
A week earlier, Kingsbury took advantage of a mistake on the course to defeat rival Benjamin Cavet of France on home soil in Calgary.
Laffont takes women's Crystal Globe
Among his many season highlights was Kingsbury shrugging off food poisoning en route to his 51st career World Cup victory in mid-December in Thaiwoo, China.
Meanwhile, Perrine Laffont, fresh off Saturday's silver-medal performance, finished with 780 points to capture the Crystal Globe on the women's side.
Montreal's Justine Dufour-Lapointe finished sixth in the standings with 330 points while her sister, Chloé, collected 290 points.
The Dufour-Lapointes and their teammates have a couple of weeks to rest and prepare for the national freestyle moguls championships March 21-24 in Val St-Come, Que.