‘Good day at the office’ for women’s mogul team
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia
Back in the day, Jean-Luc Brassard felt like the wild child of the Canadian Olympic team. “At the time, freestyle didn’t have much visibility,” says Brassard, who won gold in moguls when the sport made its debut at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer. “We were seen like the leftovers.”
Twenty years later, the leftovers have turned into the main course for medal-starved Canadians at the 2014 Games.
“Freestyle skiing is definitely the target, as is short-track speedskating,” says Brassard, assistant chef de mission for the Canadian Olympic Committee. “These sports, Canada has been so great at them for so long. And now the future generation — the generation spawned by Alex Bilodeau in Vancouver — they’re coming up amazingly fast.” He claps his hands. “Usually you have to wait for it,” he says. “But boom! Voila!”
Indeed. On Thursday, four Canadian women advanced to Saturday’s moguls final: Audrey Robichaud, of Quebec City, and the three Dufour-Lapointe sisters: Maxine, Chloe and Justine, of Montreal.
The middle child, Chloe, edged baby Justine for second place behind the defending champion, Hannah Kearney, of the United States.
Maxime, the oldest, qualified in eighth place followed by Robichaud in ninth as the sun set behind the mountains at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
“It’s a good day at the office,” raved Canadian coach Jean-Paul Richard. “It was the plan and the hope to get all four in the top 10.”
Four years after Bilodeau’s historic moguls gold in Vancouver, Canada’s 26-member freestyle team is stacked with podium contenders in virtually every discipline. In men’s moguls, Bilodeau and rising star Mikael Kingsbury are expected to battle it out for gold and silver in what has become n Canadian Olympic rivalry for the ages.
“Don’t forget Marc-Antoine Gagnon,” Brassard says of the 22-yearold from Terrebonne, Que. “He’s such an amazing skier. Without Alex and Mik, he would be in the spotlight, but it’s just like he’s playing with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. It’s that time period.”
In ski cross, 2010 gold medallist Ashleigh McIvor has retired, but both Marielle Thompson, the first Canadian to win a Crystal Globe in the discipline, and Kelsey Serwa could conceivably land on the podium. On the men’s side, Dave Duncan won back-to-back World Cup gold medals in January, and he’s joined by Chris Del Bosco (the fourth-place finisher at the Vancouver Games) and Brady Leman, ranked No. 2 in the world in 2011-12.
In halfpipe, Roz Groenewoud and Mike Riddle are both in the mix for gold. In slopestyle, watch for Kaya Turski and Dara Howell. And in the skyscraping world of men’s aerials, keep an eye out for 22-year-old Travis Gerrits.
“People love to watch the Olympic Games, because it’s not reality TV,” Brassard says. “It’s not something that at the end we’re like, ‘OK, we’ll let this guy win, because it’s better for the ratings.’
“It could be you or your neighbour who can face the toughest people in the world.”