Andi Naude finished first in ladies moguls qualifying for the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup in Calgary but a mistake in the finals put her just off the podium in fourth place.
With relatively mild temperatures and the sun breaking through the clouds over the moguls venue at Calgary’s Canada Olympic Park, a big crowd was on hand to watch the moguls action on the weekend, with some top-level performances on display as the skiers gear up to hit the homestretch ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games coming up in February.
Related: Freestyle skier Naude secures Olympic team spot
It was Britt Cox (Australia) who laid down a score of 82.11 in the super final with technical precision and clean airs that offset her slightly slower time scores. Her score leapfrogged her over Perrine Laffont’s (France) score of 81.64 and Justine Dufour-Lapointe’s (Canada) 81.30. Cox was left on the sidelines to watch Naude and one other skier that were having a strong weekend and had eyes on the podium.
Naude, who had earlier scored a 78.18 to take first in the qualifier, posted lower technical scores and slightly higher on her turns to finish with a score of 81.23. That left her just behind Dufour-Lapointe’s 81.30 score in fourth place.
With 10 straight wins, dating back to last season, Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury continued to dominate the men’s moguls. His 11th straight victory came in Calgary with his best run of the season earning a score of 89.55. Runner-up Dmitriy Reikherd challenged (Kazakhstan) Kingsbury with a risky inverted 1080 off the top air bump giving him a score of 86.43 — the highest of the day up to that point.
“Dmitriy put a lot of pressure on me today,” said Kingsbury. “When I heard his score up there, 86 something, my heart started beating faster. But I managed to take some deep breaths and calm down, and once I got on course I just let my skis do the talking and stuck to my game plan. Somehow every time in the super final lately I’ve been able to do the performance that I want, so I’m pretty happy about that.”
The moguls World Cup now moves the slopes of Deer Valley (U.S.) where a pair of back-to-back night competitions are slated to take place on Jan. 10 and 11.