Mikaël Kingsbury finished off the FIS World Cup season in moguls the way he started it — with a victory.
Kingsbury took the gold medal in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Friday with a score of 85.67 points. He defeated his closest challenger, home favourite Pavel Kolmakov, by almost seven points. The Kazakhstani skier earned 78.72 points from the judges to edge out Australian Matt Graham for the silver by just three-tenths (0.3) of a point.
Three other Canadians advanced to the first round of the final, but only Kingsbury moved on to the six-man super final. Gabriel Dufresne placed 12th, followed by Julien Viel in 13th, and Eliot Vaillancourt in 14th. Kingsbury had also been the top scorer in the first final with 83.59 points.
Kingsbury did not miss the podium in any World Cup moguls competition this season, earning three gold and three silver medals in the six events. That put him atop the season standings for the discipline, earning him the Crystal Globe.
On Saturday, he’ll compete in the last dual moguls event of the season. Kingsbury has reached the podium in four of the five World Cup stops thus far in that discipline, putting him in line to clinch that Crystal Globe with a good result. That would be his third on the season, as he has already laid claim to the overall Crystal Globe as the top man in moguls and dual moguls combined.
Mikaël Kingsbury competes in men’s moguls at the FIS Freestyle World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan on March 17, 2023 (Andrey Kulagin/KSA)
With his 23 career Crystal Globes, Kingsbury has more World Cup season titles than any other freestyle skier in history. He currently sits at 79 career World Cup victories in 134 starts.
This final World Cup weekend comes three weeks after Kingsbury last competed, when he won gold in both the moguls and dual moguls events at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia. It was the third straight worlds at which he claimed both titles.
Almaty will also host the last aerials World Cup events of the season on Sunday.