Moguls star Kingsbury leads Canada’s 24-member freestyle team for Beijing

Mikaël Kingsbury has already captured Olympic gold. He’s climbed the World Cup podium greater than 100 instances.

However Canada’s moguls celebrity believes he’ll be higher than ever in Beijing.

“I really feel on the prime of my recreation proper now,” Kingsbury stated Monday. “I’m peaking on the proper second … I’m feeling extraordinarily good within the begin gate which is among the most necessary components of our sport, due to the efficiency on demand and the truth that each run issues, however I do know my greatest snowboarding has not proven but this 12 months and I really feel like Beijing is the suitable time to drag all the pieces collectively.”

The 29-year-old from Deux-Montagnes, Que., headlines Canada’s 24-member freestyle ski staff for the Beijing Olympics, a staff so mighty it’s powerful simply to make it. Since freestyle snowboarding made its Video games debut in 1992 in Albertville, Canada has captured 25 medals — 12 gold, 9 silver and 4 bronze — greater than every other nation.

“It’s all the time been one of many biggest accomplishments for a Canadian athlete in freestyle snowboarding to make it to the Video games, making the Canadian staff is a really, very tough highway,” stated Peter Choose, the CEO of Freestyle Snowboarding Canada. “Much more so given all of the circumstances that we’ve needed to cope with (across the COVID-19 pandemic).

“So, we’re extraordinarily pleased with this group for his or her tenacity, for his or her perseverance for what they’ve been capable of cope with and nonetheless keep buoyant, keep targeted and be as well-prepared as we could be for the upcoming Beijing Video games.”

Kingsbury, who adopted within the footsteps of Canada’s two-time Olympic moguls champ Alexandre Bilodeau, will make his third Olympic look in Beijing. He heads to China because the reigning Olympic champion and on the heels of snowboarding to his a hundred and first World Cup podium end, and seventieth victory on the World Cup circuit.

Requested if profitable ever turns into boring, the world’s most achieved moguls skier shook his head.

“Each win and each efficiency is totally different, they’re all fairly distinctive,” Kingsbury stated. “The Olympics, it’s not one thing that comes tremendous usually. I’ve had an excellent lengthy profession, and that is my third Olympics, and it’s one other alternative to carry out effectively.”

He’s not involved about competing with an enormous bull’s-eye on his again.

“It’s all the time the place you wish to be in, coming into the Video games, it’s nice to be the favorite,” Kingsbury stated. “That was one in all my objectives, to reach on the Video games with the No. 1 bib. I gained the final Olympics with bib No. 1. It was a tough battle to get it. However yeah, it’s all the time good to be hunted. It’s nice to have a goal in your again.

“However you can't look behind, as a result of I do know the fellows are working onerous, all the world over proper now the boys’s discipline within the prime 10 is so robust.”

Kingsbury spoke on a digital staff announcement from Apex Mountain Ski Resort in Penticton, B.C., the place the Canadian athletes are coaching in isolation forward of their flight to Beijing. Kingsbury and roommate Laurent Dumais spend their downtime binging Netflix. Kingsbury has been rewatching all of the Marvel exhibits.

Rachael Karker of Erin, Ont., will make her Olympic debut in Beijing on the heels of an impressive World Cup season that noticed her climb the rostrum in all three of her halfpipe occasions.

“I’ve labored so onerous the previous few years and I’m feeling ready and able to get moving into Beijing,” Karker stated.

Different Canadian standouts embrace sisters Chloe and Justine Dufour-Lapointe, who will compete of their third straight Video games collectively. Chloe appears to be like to make historical past as the primary feminine Canadian freestyle skier to compete in 4 Olympic Winter Video games.

Marion Thenault, a former gymnast who discovered to ski after being recruited by means of the RBC Coaching Floor in 2017, leads the ladies’s aerials staff after incomes three World Cup podiums throughout the final 12 months.

The blended staff aerials and ski huge air occasions will make their Olympic debuts at Beijing 2022.

Cassie Sharpe, the reigning Olympic champion in ladies’s halfpipe, appears to be like to make a comeback after a big knee damage final January.

The boys’s halfpipe staff options Brendan MacKay, the general World Cup champion this season, in addition to world championship medallists Noah Bowman and Simon d’Artois.

Freestyle snowboarding will happen Feb. 3-19 on the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou and on the Huge Air Shougang in Beijing.

The Olympic freestyle staff:

Moguls:

Chloe Dufour-Lapointe and Justine Dufour-Lapointe, Montreal; Laurent Dumais, Québec Metropolis; Sofiane Gagnon, Whistler, B.C.; Mikaël Kingsbury, Deux-Montagnes, Que.

Aerials:

Flavie Aumond, Lac-Beauport, Que.; Naomy Boudreau-Guertin, Boischatel, Que.; Miha Fontaine, Lac-Beauport, Que.; Lewis Irving, Quebec Metropolis; Émile Nadeau, Prevost, Que.; Marion Thenault, Sherbrooke, Que.

Slopestyle/Huge Air:

Olivia Asselin, Lac-Beauport, Que.; Elena Gaskell, Vernon, B.C.; Teal Harle, Campbell River, B.C.; Evan McEachran, Oakville, Ont.; Max Moffatt, Guelph, Ont.; Megan Oldham, Parry Sound, Ont.; Edouard Therriault, Lorraine, Que.

Halfpipe:

Noah Bowman, Amy Fraser and Brendan Mackay, Calgary; Simon d’Artois, Whistler, B.C.; Rachael Karker, Erin, Ont.; Cassie Sharpe, Comox, B.C.

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 24, 2022.