KINGSBURY’S MISSING PRIZE IS OLYMPIC GOLD
One more winning performance will cement his status as the best freestyle skier ever
In the middle of a training run under the lights at Phoenix Snow Park, Mikael Kingsbury comes to a stop on the moguls course. He pauses for a few seconds, then lazily approaches the final jump and, in mid-air, scissors his legs.
It is an afterthought of a trick, utterly casual, then Kingsbury — the 25-year-old from the Laurentians who has won six World Cup competitions this season alone — bounces over the final few moguls to finish his run. He stops with a big spray and taps his poles together on his way over to his coaches, banging out a tuneless number.
He has all the bearing of someone trying to keep it light. Which is probably a good approach for someone who is just days away from trying to add the final piece to his legacy.
“I’m not thinking like I’m missing anything,” Kingsbury says when his training session in the biting cold of the mountains east of Seoul is finished.
But something is missing. Kingsbury has an unparalleled resume: six straight seasons in which he won both the World Cup crown for moguls and the overall Freestyle championship. He has 48 World Cup moguls titles, more than anyone in history, and he won a record 13 straight moguls competitions, a streak just broken when he finished all the way back in second place at Mont Tremblant, Que., late last month. For shame.
But amid all that Gretzkylike dominance, the one win Kingsbury has not managed is an Olympic gold medal. He has a silver one, finishing behind teammate Alex Bilodeau at Sochi 2014.
And so, this is it: the chance to lock down the title that comes around only every four years, the win that would put him alongside Bilodeau and Jean-Luc Brassard, his boyhood idol, with men’s moguls gold for Canada. It’s just the thing that would cement his status as the best freestyle skier of all time. Ho-hum. No biggie.
Naturally, he’s not thinking of it that way.
“It’s not like this race is any harder to win,” he said. “I’m going up against all the same guys.”
Then he breaks into a little smile.
“It’s just that the Olympic rings are everywhere.”
Indeed they are. But Kingsbury says it hasn’t been difficult to push that aside while he prepares for the Olympic chance that begins here Friday morning. There is too much work to do.
“Right now, I’m not focused on winning,” he said.
There is training, and practice runs, and video to watch, and the familiarization that has to take place with a course. The snow conditions are perfect, so it’s a matter of getting used to the lines on the steep Phoenix park track. (Not that the learning curve is all that sharp for Kingsbury: he competed here in a World Cup event in February 2017 and, surprise, won it.)
But while he talks a businesslike game, and mostly offers the just-another-race stuff, there are moments when Kingsbury lets slip, just a bit, what is ahead. The Olympics are not just another race, no matter how many times you tell yourself that.
“I’ve been dreaming of this since I was pretty young,” he says.
And though he is still pretty young in a relative sense, there is no guarantee he will have another shot at an Olympic medal in another four years. Knees can take only so much pounding. The record books are full of dominant amateur athletes who racked up season after season of world championships and World Cup titles but who, for reasons of bad timing or bad luck or some combination of both, couldn’t secure Olympic gold. Canada has several in men’s figure skating alone.
Best not to think about the legacy, then. At least, best not to think about it too much.
“I want to win, I’m not gonna lie. But there are a lot of little details I have to focus on first,” Kingsbury says, using his gloved hands to mimic building something step by step.
A moguls run looks like barely controlled chaos, but Kingsbury talks about it like he is calmly and deliberately assembling a winning strategy. Do this thing, then do that thing, then repeat it. Work out the details, and success will come. I mean, if the most decorated freestyle skier of all time tells you that wins are a product of careful preparation, it’s hard to argue the point.
“I do that,” he says, “and the result will follow itself.”
Kingsbury offers a fist bump and skis off, the picture of relaxation.
It is a good way to be, with nothing but a legacy on the line.