Ski and Snowboard Club Vail alumnus takes 13th in men’s mogul finals
Australian Cooper Woods pulled the upset over Mikael Kingsbury and Steamboat Springs' Wendler placed 17th
Abbie Parr/AP photo
Ski and Snowboard Club Vail alumnus Dylan Walczyk finished 13th in the Olympic individual men’s mogul competition on Thursday morning in Livigno. The 33-year-old, who was seventh in the qualification on Tuesday, posted a score of 77.62 in the final 1. The two-time Olympian and Breckenridge native missed the top-8 super final cut by 2.30 points.
Australian Cooper Woods pulled off the run of his life to snag gold over Canadian Mikael Kingsbury, whom many consider to be the greatest mogul skier of all time. Woods peeled off a back double full and cork 7 and stopped the clock at 22.61 seconds, 18 hundredths faster than Kingsbury. Both athletes amassed 83.71 points, but Woods broke the tie on his turn score.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Woods, who came into the event with just one World Cup podium from 2017. “Speechless, super emotional, very proud. I didn’t have any expectations this morning. I just wanted to go out and ski my runs and stay true to what I know I can achieve.”
I’m very happy with my skiing. It was close, a tiebreak — unfortunately I’m the guy not on the good side of it,” Kingsbury told FIS. The 33-year-old, who has won 100 World Cups in his career and 13 of the last 14 crystal globes, is the first athlete to win medals in the same freestyle skiing event at four-straight Olympics. He won silver in 2014, 2022 and on Thursday to go along with a gold from 2018. In some ways the hardware from this week holds special significance.
“I’ve worked very hard for this medal,” Kingsbury continued. “I’m getting older, I’m 33, I had an injury in September. At some point it felt like it was impossible to be back at that level. I want to say a massive thanks to my team that believed in me, made me do my rehab, and worked so hard for me to be standing on that Olympic podium. I’m very proud of myself.”
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Reigning world champion Ikuma Horishima of Japan claimed the bronze as Nick Page led the four-person American squad in sixth.
“Made some mistakes in the middle but there’s some beauty in the fact that nothing was perfect today,” Page said. “The line was good. It was a tricky condition; it got hard to see, the light was pretty flat and you really just had to be on it. I got a little anxious on some of those turns and that’s what cost me.”
Teammate Charlie Mickel (78.03) was just ahead of Walczyk in 12th as Steamboat Springs skier Landon Wendler (70.20) placed 17th.
“It’s super difficult,” Mickel said when asked how hard it is to get into the top-8. “I pretty much did what I could there and I thought I laid down a good run.”
Harvey Jackson, who grew up and trained in Winter Park finished in eighth for Australia.
The men’s dual moguls is slated for Feb. 15 starting at 2:30 a.m. MST.
