ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) – Defending champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada easily beat his rivals to lead the Olympic men’s freestyle moguls qualifying on Thursday, ahead of Sweden’s Walter Wallberg and France’s Benjamin Cavet.
Kingsbury, who won the gold medal in Pyeongchang four years ago and silver at the 2014 Sochi Games, soared to a high score of 81.15 points, flying over the course in just over 24 seconds.
“I know it’s not my best skiing, but for today I didn’t try to do too much, I did exactly what I wanted and I am very satisfied with the result,” he said, adding he would be back for the final “stronger”.
Wallberg picked up 79.12 points, but the Swede assured he was holding something back.
Calling his first run “solid”, Wallberg was pleased with his smooth performance, making a heart sign to the cameras at the bottom of the course.
“Plans for the finals is to ski a bit faster and add an extra spin at the bottom … just to push a bit more,” the 21-year-old said.
Japan and Sweden each got two skiers into the top 10.
Daichi Hara, who won bronze in Pyeongchang, said he felt immense pressure.
“The fact that it was my second time and the added title of being a medallist was weighing on me and I felt like I couldn’t have fun until the very beginning,” Hara told reporters.
“That’s why I tried to smile as much as possible at the top and kept telling myself ‘have fun, have fun’ and I was able to do just that.”
The top 10 skiers from the first round of qualifying automatically advance to the final, with a second round of qualifiers to be held on Saturday.
(Reporting by Mari Saito and Winni Zhou, editing by Ed Osmond)
