Hannah Kearney, right, of the United States, celebrates her victory with second-place Justine Dufour-Lapointe, of Canada, after the women's dual moguls event during World Cup freestyle skiing competition Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013, at Deer Valley in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
February 02, 2013 - 8:50 PM
PARK CITY, Utah - Canadian Olympic champion Alex Bilodeau won gold in the freestyle World Cup dual moguls finals Saturday while teammate Justine Dufour-Lapointe took silver in the women's competition.
Bilodeau, who won the dual mogul world championship on the same course, took his first World Cup victory since 2011.
"It's definitely very good to be back on top of the podium and I'm so happy with my skiing, it was improving every run today and so it's looking good for the rest of the season," said the Rosemere, Que., native.
Bilodeau's teammate Mikael Kingsbury had his historic 19-podium streak end when his ski popped off in his quarter-final dual.
Kingsbury, from Deux-Montagnes, Que., is still the FIS points leader, but he said he was disappointed with the way his streak ended.
"I would have preferred to finish my streak with a fall or trying to push the limits to the max as opposed to losing a ski for no major reason, so for sure it's disappointing, but still I'm happy with the result of the day. I think I skied well all week and I'm still the World Cup leader," said Kingsbury, who finished fifth.
Bilodeau was joined on the podium by Americans Patrick Deneen in second and Bradley Wilson in third.
On the women's side, Dufour-Lapointe lost her final dual to Olympic champion Hannah Kearney of the United States. Nevertheless, the 18-year-old from Montreal was happy with how she rose to the occasion.
"I'm really stoked, I skied so good in the middle section, I'm just really proud of me because this morning I woke up and I was just so tired that I thought, 'Gosh, today I would really like to take a break after five days in a row of skiing, my body is so exhausted,' but I managed that really well and I told myself that I needed every run and that it was important," she said of the five-run marathon to the podium.
Dufour-Lapointe added that, although she lost her dual to Kearney, she surprised herself with the speed and quality of her skiing.
"I have never skied that fast ever in my entire life," she said. "Just to know that I am capable of skiing that fast is so great. Too bad, I hit a bump a little too heavy and it made me make a mistake, but it's OK, being on the podium is cool and keeping my yellow bib is even cooler."
Kazakhstan's Yulia Galysheva won the bronze.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2013