BEIDA LAKE, China (FEB 12, 2012) - On Sunday, Hannah Kearney put the feather in the cap of what has been a truly remarkable run of World Cup moguls victories, taking her 15th win in a row and eclipsing the consecutive FIS World Cup victories record previously held by giant slalom specialist Ingemar Stenmark.
Stenmark, whose record has stood unchallenged since the 1980 World Cup season, is the winningest alpine skier of all time.
Kearney's shot at surpassing Stenmark's feat nearly didn't come, as the American had some problems in her finals run and just barely snuck into the super final in 4th place. However, taking advantage the new super final format wherein each skier's score is reset at the start of each round, Kearney was given a clean sheet with which to work. She made no mistakes.
"I made the Super Finals in fourth place and had to really ski for my life," Kearney said after the race, "I skied aggressively and went really big off the bottom air and was rewarded with the victory."
Amazingly, Kearney didn't even know that she was on her way to eclipsing Stenmark's record until she had already done so.
"It’s insane," she said, "I had no idea about the record. It’s great to have this record as a freestyle skier. Alpine has a lot more races thus more opportunities to start a streak. That is the biggest honor that I can possibly receive considering all the amazing athletes that have crossed through the FIS World Cup circuit throughout the years."
Kearney will have the chance to extend her streak on February 18th, as the FIS Freestyle tour moves to Naeba, Japan for the moguls and dual moguls events.
DUFOUR-LAPOINTE CLOSING IN ON KEARNEY
Perhaps lost in the excitement over Kearney's record setting win was the performance of Canadian Justine Dufour-Lapointe, who finished second with a score of 25.39 to Kearney's 25.69. Dufour-Lapointe has been runner-up to Kearney six times this season, but felt that Sunday's showing was the closest she had come to knocking the record-setting American from the top of the podium.
"And I didn’t even make my best 360 today,” Dufour-Lapointe had to say when considering what it might take to surpass her American counterpart, "It’s good to know that I’m getting close to her.”
Rounding out the ladies super final were Yulia Galysheva (KAZ) in 3rd and Justine's sister Chloe Dufour-Lapointe (CAN) in 4th.
FULL LADIES RESULTS HERE.
KINGSBURY BACK ON TOP
After narrowly missing the chance to top Jeremy Bloom's record of six consecutive moguls wins last week in Deer Valley, Canadian Mikael Kingsbury reclaimed his place at the top of the podium on Sunday in Beida Lake.
In a four-man super final featuring three Canadians, wonderkid Kingsbury was able to best teammate Phillipe Marquis and Kazakstan's Dmitriy Reiherd, who tied for second and denied Marc-Antoine Gangon a chance to complete the Canadian sweep.
"I am just trying to focus on being consistent every run and not make mistakes," Kingsbury said of his approach to the event, "Every course I for sure try to find the strategy that will give me my best performance, but not to focus just on winning.
“I’m happy, I’m still perfect in singles for the season and I feel good."
The man who halted Kingsbury's streak last week, Sergey Volkov, finished in 6th.
FULL MEN'S RESULTS HERE.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS AND OTHER EVENTS HERE.
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