MERIBEL, France (Dec. 20) - Olympic gold medalist and defending FIS Freestyle World Cup champion Hannah Kearney (Norwich, VT) secured her point lead today after a strong dual moguls win in Meribel – her ninth straight since last season - as three Americans stood atop the podium. Heather McPhie (Bozeman, MT) was third as was Sho Kashima (S. Lake Tahoe, CA) who rounded out the podium for the second event in a row. Michael Kingsbury of Canada took the win and maintains the men's World Cup point lead.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Hannah Kearney took her second win of the season and maintains the lead in World Cup points
• 21st career World Cup win for Kearney and ninth straight moguls or dual moguls win victory (carried over from last season)
• Heather McPhie took her first podium of the season with third
• Sho Kashima had second career podium after achieving his first last week, taking out teammate Jeremy Cota (Carrabassett Valley, ME) by one point to finish third
• Bradley Wilson (Butte, MT) had a career best eighth
• Athletes endured near blizzard conditions during finals after training in clear conditions all week
QUOTES
Garth Hager, Moguls Coach
I'm incredibly proud that our skiers are the most consistent among the whole World Cup. After a long day of training and competing they are all looking forward to proving themselves next time.
Hannah Kearney
This is a great way to head home for the holidays from Europe. I won the qualifying run so I had some good confidence going into the competition.
It was snowing really heavily on the course, I tried to ski as fast as I could off the top air, do a heli on the bottom and just go as fast as I could to beat people to the bottom of the jump where the judges could see us.
We only got about a day and a half of training, most of the first day was canceled because of conditions, and the course was totally different than it was yesterday because of the snow conditions, so it was definitely a bit different but it all still worked out.
It's always really great to be able to share the podium with your teammates.
Heather McPhie
I’m incredibly happy with my results today, even more so because it was my first time competing a D-spin in duals and the first time that I was able to podium with it.
All the snow made for a soft course, which I actually really love. Vision wasn't a problem on the course, even if it was for the spectators. Competing under the lights made it really easy for us.
Sho Kashima
If you would have told me that I would have two good results before Christmas I would have thought you were crazy. It's pretty great what being healthy will do for you along with good off season training. It just translates into good results. I'm going to head over to Quebec a little early to get some good training there.
RESULTS
Official results
