Penticton’s Andi Naude landed on the podium in her first day of competition at the FIS Freestyle ski moguls World Cup in Thaiwoo, China.
Naude earned a third-place finish on the women’s side, while Canadian Mikael Kingsbury took first place.
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“I am really happy about today,” said Naude, who finished in fourth place in the season’s first World Cup in Finland earlier this month. “Being able to ski in the three rounds from qualification to final and super final was my goal and also to stick to the process and ski my best every single run. I am really excited to have been able to use my back full in all three runs. Obviously the harder degree of difficulty is really valuable.”
First place was Jaelin Kauf (U.S.) with a score of 77.90, second was Yulia Galysheva (KAZ) with a score of 77.79 and then Naude with 77.84. Naude scored highest in the super final with her air.
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Kingsbury’s win brings his consecutive World Cup wins to nine and his career total to 44. While it was another first place finish for him, the trip to China was stressful. The skier’s luggage and skis went missing and only turned up the day before the first official training.
This is the second time the Canadian athletes competed on this site, which will be the venue of many contests at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games.