Moguls king Kingsbury says season was his best

Fresh off a flight from Sweden, Mikael Kingsbury has been in isolation in his Montreal apartment for five days, doing his social distancing best to curb the COVID -19 pandemic.

He has no symptoms. In fact, he couldn’t feel better after yet another dominating performance on the World Cup moguls skiing circuit.

And there has long been a professional distance between Kingsbury and most of his competitors, as he’s usually at the top of the podium, while they are relegated to the second and third steps.

In the just completed and shortened season, which was cut from 13 to 10 stops and ended with a cancelled event in Sweden, he won seven times and finished second to Japanese rival Ikuma Horishima in the other three.

“I feel all my performances this year, even the three times I finished in second place, the performance could have won the event,” said Kingsbury. “I am happy with my skiing. I was able to bounce back. Every time I finished second, I was able to win the race right after. I was super consistent and the competition has never been that strong in 10 years for me on the World Cup. That was the most competition I’ve had, so I think it is for sure my best season.”

That amazing level of consistency and excellence allowed the 27-year-old to collect his 17th and 18th Crystal Globes, the baubles that are emblematic of first-place finishes in the season-long World Cup moguls and overall freestyle skiing points races. He has won both the large and small Globes for nine straight years, and, over the course of his decade-long career, has an astonishing 63 wins and 91 podium finishes in 109 starts.

While winning is familiar, the denouement of this abbreviated season was strange.

“At the beginning of the season until early February everything seemed normal, like usual. It got a bit weird when we went to Japan for the last stretch of the season. We were supposed to do six races; two in Japan, one in Kazakhstan, one in Russia and two in Sweden,” Kingsbury said.

“Japan felt like normal, but when we start flying to Kazakhstan we realized it was a big problem. Men were coming on our planes with white suits and masks to take our temperature. In Russia, every time you wanted to go to the venue you had to see a doctor. It was a lot different. When we got to Sweden, it was on another level.”

There were fans at the events in Russia and Kazakhstan, but there wouldn’t have been any fans in Sweden had the races gone ahead.

Kingsbury said he is fully committed to his sport through the next Winter Olympics, which are scheduled for 2022 in Beijing.