KING OF THE HILL
Olympic moguls champ Mikaël Kingsbury named Canada’s athlete of the year,
Once it happens, it feels like it was inevitable. That’s Mikaël Kingsbury’s year, and in some ways, his career. He is the greatest moguls skier who has ever lived, more or less. It’s hard to find a more dominant athlete, Canadian or otherwise.
Tuesday, the Olympic champion from Deux-Montagnes, Que., won the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s athlete of the year. He is the most dominant freestyle skier of any kind. He finished first in every World Cup race except for the two where he finished second. Kingsbury rules his sport.
And he filled the one gap in the resume by winning his first gold medal at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, on a bitterly cold night under the lights. He was so nervous. He was fourth in his first run; he was second in the second one. He had one chance for the gold he had been dreaming of and working towards since he was a boy. He is the best in the world, but even the best in the world have to earn it every time. And pressure can crack anybody wide open.
The light snow was blown by the wind, and illuminated by the spotlights, and Kingsbury pushed off and nailed it.
He said, “I stopped being nervous when I crossed the line. And I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I think I did it.’ ” He did. You could argue for 20-year-old golfer Brooke Henderson — she became the first Canadian in 45 years to win the Canadian Open, and finished second in
the LPGA’s points chase. The 21-year-old Connor McDavid will get one before he’s done, despite the best efforts of the rest of the Oilers. Both were among the finalists.
But Kingsbury wasn’t arguable unless you decided dominating moguls is easier than being very, very good at women’s golf or the best player in hockey. Which we debated, as we debate every year. There have never been more Canadian athletes in more sports to choose from. Canada won 11 golds in Pyeongchang; we have more NBA players than we can fit on a 12-man roster; we have tennis players and golfers and curlers and Olympians and more. Oh, and hockey.
Sometimes the committee gets the Lou Marsh wrong. It’s the defining sports award in Canada every year and has been since 1936, give or take three years off for the Second World War; the committee of writers and broadcasters who meet at the Toronto Star each year do their best. It’s a great debate. On Tuesday, I think we got the result right.
If we’re being transparent, though, the process wasn’t perfect. The committee’s steering members decided not to include ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, on the semantic and frankly ridiculous basis that the award is for athlete of the year. Never mind that the award has been given to pairs three times: Figure skaters twice, and a rowing pair once. We fixed something that wasn’t broken.
I’m not sure I would have voted for Virtue and Moir. They won the Canadian championships in ice dancing in January, and won gold in Pyeongchang in both ice dancing pairs and the team skating event. Nobody else won two gold medals this year. They broke a world record to win, after a French pair had set one. Under pressure, in their last real dance, they were perfect.
Kingsbury dominates his sport to a greater degree than they do; their sport is just more theatrical, more emotional, more memorable. That they are so sweet and kind, and that a large swathe of the country and the world wonders whether they are secretly a couple — or insists they SHOULD be a couple — only adds to their allure.
They might not have won, but it would have been a worthier debate with them in it. The argument over their inclusion ate into the actual back-andforth, which year in and year out is the most robust and wide-ranging such debate in the country. Along with the tradition of the Lou Marsh, and the wide-ranging composition of the voters, it’s what makes the award. We did Kingsbury, along with Virtue and Moir and every other athlete, a disservice. He is still a worthy winner. Our process wasn’t his fault.
So Kingsbury’s name goes on the list, and it’s a great list. The current committee’s expansion of the voting pool in both numbers and geography has been good for the award, which isn’t perfect, any more than the athletes are. Some in the room when Jamie Salé and David Pelletier won in 2001 insisted baseball’s Larry Walker should have been the choice. Walker, of course, lost to auto racer Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 and griped, “I lost to a car.” He was right. Sometimes, we miss.
Sometimes Kingsbury does too. But that night in Pyeongchang he was as nervous as he had ever been in his life, and everything he had done — every one of his record World Cup wins, every world championship victory or defeat, every practice, every workout, every doubt overcome, every bit of the confidence that must be earned and re-earned every day — came down to that one chance.
And with his entire life’s dream on the course in front of him he skied with courage and matchless skill and won gold, finally. He is Canada’s athlete of the year in 2018. He deserves it.