Freestyle Skiing | The Dufour-Lapointe sisters at the Olympics


The three Dufour-Lapointe sisters will once again be reunited at the Olympic Games. Justine and Chloé have officially been selected for the Canadian Olympic team in mogul skiing for the Beijing Olympics. Maxime, the eldest of the family, was already part of the delegation as a mentor.

Posted at 10:28 a.m.

Simon Drouin

Simon Drouin
The Press

If the place of Justine, the youngest gold medalist in 2014 and silver in 2018, seemed understood by virtue of her results last season, that of Chloé was much less obvious.

Olympic vice-champion in 2014, the 30-year-old was the first reserve of the entire Canadian freestyle ski team until last week. A reallocation of Olympic quotas granted by the International Ski Federation allows him to participate in his fourth Olympic Games after those of Vancouver (5e), Sochi (silver) and PyeongChang (17e).

After a more difficult last season, Chloé Dufour-Lapointe rebounded this winter by each time executing a new maneuver on the top jump, an off-axis 720 that took her a while to master. On January 8, his eighth place at the second Tremblant World Cup event, a high in more than two years, was decisive in his qualification for Beijing. She will be the first Canadian in history to take part in four freestyle skiing Olympics.

“Results like that give you extra confidence,” said the top Canadian on the moguls circuit this winter. It lifts my head. I feel even better. That’s performance: it’s vibrating. Sometimes the judges see it, sometimes they don’t. There, I beamed at the end of the week. »

The Montrealer also finished 12e at the opening stage of Ruka and 13e in Deer Valley on January 13. These three top-16 results were taken into account in the joint process put in place by Freestyle Canada (moguls, aerials, halfpipe, freestyle/high jump) and Alpine Canada (ski cross).

These five specialties shared the 32 places available for Canada at the Beijing Olympics – 16 men and 16 women – the maximum number. A maximum of four athletes per gender and per discipline could be chosen.

The ski cross team, unveiled last week, is full. Olympic medalist Britt Phelan, from Mont-Tremblant, is the only Quebecer selected. Hannah and Jared, sister and brother, are from Ottawa but represent the Mont-Tremblant ski club.

In moguls, Justine Dufour-Lapointe, 27, will compete in her third Olympics. The two-time Olympic medalist had finished fourth in the first competition of the 2020-21 campaign, giving her a step ahead. She returned to the top-10 this month at Tremblant and Deer Valley (9e), which consolidated his position.

Sofiane Gagnon of Whistler will be Canada’s third starter. She too was picked up at the last minute.

For men, the reigning world and Olympic champion, Mikaël Kingsbury, was already assured of his third Olympic participation.

“It is always an honor for me to represent the country on the biggest stage in the world,” Kingsbury said in a statement. It will be my third Olympic Games and each time it is the same feeling of pride that inhabits me. This moment is the culmination of the last four years of work and I look forward to being in Beijing with all the other athletes of the Canadian delegation. »

He can count on just one teammate, Laurent Dumais, who made a spectacular comeback after missing the first half of the season due to a herniated disc.

After a cortisone injection, the athlete from Quebec has continually improved in his last four World Cup starts, where he played his all despite the pain. He sealed his ticket to his first Olympics by taking eighth place in the last race in Deer Valley, his first top-10 since his sixth place at the Worlds in Kazakhstan last winter.

Quebec Air Force

In acrobatic jumping, the entire Canadian team is also from Quebec. Marion Thénault and Lewis Irving had already qualified for their first Olympics. Recruits Flavie Aumond, Naomy Boudreau-Guertin, Miha Fontaine and Émile Nadeau complete this contingent resembling the new generation Quebec Air Force. Miha is also the son of Nicolas Fontaine, a former world champion who was instrumental in rebuilding the Canadian team at the Lac-Beauport centre.

In acrobatic descent (slopestyle) and big jump (big air), young Olivia Asselin, brilliant bronze medalist at the X Games last weekend, and Édouard Thérriault, bronze at the Font-Romeu World Cup last week , will now twirl on the Beijing modules and ramps. At 17, Asselin will be the youngest member of the entire Canadian Olympic team.

“We will send the largest contingent in our history with a total of 24 athletes competing in 11 events in five disciplines,” said Freestyle Canada CEO Peter Judge. We are thrilled to see them embark on such a journey to continue the proud tradition that Freestyle Canada has forged at the Games. »

Quebec claims 13 of the 32 Canadian starters in Beijing in the freestyle skiing disciplines.



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