BLUE MOUNTAIN, ONT. (FEB 3, 20120 - On a day when their countrymen on the Alpine side came up agonizingly short of the podium in Chamonix, Canada's freestyle ski team was able to use home-hill advantage to secure three podium spots in the Audi FIS World Cup ski cross stop at Blue Mountain, Ontario.
On the women's side, it was 19 year old Marielle Thompson of Whistler, BC, stepping up after a disappointing near-miss at the X-Games to claim the first 1st-place podium of her young career, while for the men it was Brady Leman and Chris Del Bosco managing to battle their way to a respective 1-2 showing in an extremely tight thrill-ride of a race.
Thompson absolutely commanded the two-day event on the women's side, qualifying 2nd on Thursday before proceeding to win all of her Friday heats en route to the final. In the final, Thompson was able to fend off an early challenge from the Katrins Mueller (SUI) and Ofner (AUT) and then take advantage of some confusion when Marielle Berger Sabbatel (FRA) fell in the course's roller section. From there Thompson was able to take the clear lead, pulling away from her competitors to win by a wide margin.
“It's pretty awesome,” said Thompson, just after her win was made official, “When I was going into that last jump I heard everyone cheering and it was just like, 'Oh my gosh. I'm going to win!' It's really exciting. Winning in on Canadian soil...it's going to be really memorable.
“I'm going to try and build on this for the rest of the season.”
Behind Thompson, Ofner ended up in second and Mueller in third, with Sabbatel rounding out the big final.
With two Canadian men in the big final, it wasn't a question of whether or not the large Canadian crowd would be able to celebrate a home turf podium, but instead a question of how many and in what ranking. Veteran Chris Del Bosco, the defending World Champion and X-Games gold medallist, was looking also to defend his win at last years Blue Mountain event, while 25 year old Brady Leman was looking at an opportunity to vault himself into first place in the ski cross world cup rankings with a strong showing.
Out of the gate, Leman grabbed the hole shot, and with some help from teammate Del Bosco was more or less allowed to simply point his skis down the hill and power his way to first place unchallenged. Del Bosco, however, was caught and passed mid-course by the dangerous Austrian Andreas Matt. The cagey Del Bosco was then forced to bide his time before completing what will likely go down as one of the great moves of 2011/12 season, slicing under Matt on the last turn of the race to push into second and secure the top two spots on the podium for the Canadian favorites.
After the race, the understated Canadian smiled when asked about the move.
“I was trying to stay off Brady up top, and I didn't know what side to take because I didn't want to take him out or take myself out. And when you're kind of chilling like that you leave it open for whoever's in third, and Andy (Andreas Matt) kind of snuck in there. But I stayed patient and I knew that on that last turn there was room inside. I came in pretty good, I nailed the turn before, and he looked like he was going to set up a little wider. But right as I came in he merged to the gate and we made a little bit of contact. But he stayed up, I stayed up, and it wasn't a fault.” Shrugging, he added, “That's just how it goes I guess, when you're going for the money.”
The excited Leman had praise for his teammate as he soaked up his win and rise to the top of the leader board.
“Del (Bosco) has taught me so much since I started ski cross. It's amazing to share the podium with him.
“I had really good starts all day,” Leman went on in analyzing his run and what it means for his season going forward, “But I knew I had to get that second jump down a bit better, and I nailed it in that final. That's the one that really counts. Anything can happen once you're in the final. It's always going to be super stacked. I take a lot of confidence from this. I want to just keep rolling. It's cool to have the the (SX World Cup) leader bib right now, but it doesn't matter who has it now - it's who has it in April. I just gotta try and relax and keep having fun and keep skiing and not focus too much on the overall picture here.”
Rounding out the men's top four were Matt, in third, and Armin Niederer of Switzerland in fourth.
FULL WOMEN'S RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE.
FULL MEN'S RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE.
VIDEO OF THE RACES, WITH INTERVIEWS, CAN BE FOUND HERE.
