After another successful season on the slopes, Canadian moguls skier Mikaël Kingsbury is now home for a rest – a little earlier than usual, and with some strict rules about staying home, of course.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) made the decision earlier this month to cancel the Freestyle Ski Moguls World Cup Finals in Idre Fjall, Sweden. The cancellation came just a few days prior to the event — which was scheduled for March 13-15 — and was part of a flurry of sporting events and leagues shutting down and suspending operations amid the escalating COVID-19 pandemic.
Kingsbury’s strong showing over the course of the World Cup circuit — he landed atop the podium in seven of this season’s 10 World Cup stops and placed second in the other three — earned him his eighth consecutive Crystal Globe, given to the season champion each year. He now has 63 career World Cup wins in 109 events, two Olympic medals (gold in 2018, silver in 2014), four world championship titles, and is the most dominant athlete his sport has ever seen.
While this year’s shortened ski season didn’t ultimately affect his place in the standings — he’d already earned enough points to lock up the season victory — the 27-year-old native of Deux-Montagnes, Que. is now one of thousands of professional athletes across the sporting world with a schedule suddenly cleared of travel, training and competition.
“It’s kind of hard to have that abrupt stop,” Kingsbury told Sportsnet. “I was still feeling very good and had a lot of skiing in me, but I’m very happy … I think I can say it’s my best World Cup season of my career.”
Kingsbury spoke to Sportsnet from his home base in Montreal earlier this week to discuss his season, life in quarantine and an upcoming off-season of unknowns.
Sportsnet: Congratulations on another successful season. This certainly isn’t a typical homecoming for you. What’s it been like so far?
Mikaël Kingsbury: Yeah, it’s weird, not being able to see my family. I came back from being in Europe and Asia, that was four weeks on the road competing, so coming back home it was a good call just to follow the protocol that we got from the government to stay at home.
SN: Definitely not your normal start to the off-season.
Kingsbury: It’s a bit boring, because I’m used to, you know — I had a good season and I haven’t seen everyone in a long time so you want to celebrate and see all your loved ones. So, for sure it’s long, but it’s the right thing to do right now.
It’s the end of my season, so my body wants me to rest at the same time.
SN: You’ve no doubt had some time to reflect on your World Cup season. How are you feeling about your performance?
Kingsbury: I feel very good. I set myself some very high goals this year and they were pretty much all reached. Overall, I’m just very happy. I started this season as strong as I finished the season, which I think in our sport is the most important thing – especially with all the impacts and little injuries that our sport can get you in those three or four months of the season.
What I’m the most proud of this year is, my worst result is second place in the World Cup [events] and I think all the second places I had were worth gold — I could’ve won any of my second place, but was just beaten by a better run each time, and by the same guy that is ranked second in the world, Japan’s Ikuma Horishima.
I stayed consistent all year and every time that I was finishing second I was able to bounce back and win the next event. So, super consistent skiing at 100 per cent. The guys were super strong this year, I think I’ve never had that much competition. So, it kind of left me on the edge of my seat all season and that brings the best out in me.
SN: Can you describe what it was like when you first learned the final events were being cancelled and you’d be going home?
Kingsbury: We kind of saw it coming. When we traveled from Russia to Sweden … we’d only been there one day and it was before the first day of training and we saw that the U.S. team had to go back home, and same with the Japanese team and the English team – they were all forced back home. There’s a lot of good skiers in those three countries, so for us Canadians, we knew if the U.S. were making that move … we might be the next team that has to go back home. We got to train one day in Sweden, and that training was going very well, and as soon as we got back there was an FIS meeting with all the coaches and they decided to cancel the event for the reason of the virus, which is understandable. At the moment, for sure I was a little disappointed because I was skiing very well and I was feeling very good and I knew I was going to have a good weekend.
I knew I was going to win the Tour so it’s not a big problem for me, but for some people … I understand for them it’s frustrating because you’re fighting for World Cup spots or for funding or stuff like that so it’s hard for some athletes. But understanding the situation, you know, it was safer to have everyone back to their countries and being back home and starting that quarantine as fast as we can.
SN: When you’re competing against the same athletes all the time, the pro ski community must be pretty tight-knit. Have you kept in touch with everyone back home?
Kingsbury: That’s the fun part about our sport, is everyone is very close and we all live the same kind of lifestyle but from different countries, training all summer and travelling the world together to different locations and competing and kind of like living our childhood dreams, which is fun. Especially (for me) on the men’s side, everyone is very close.
Overall, we’re pretty lucky to have a sport where everyone is healthy and everyone is sticking very close. I’m still getting in touch with my friends from Australia or the U.S., Sweden and France. It’s fun for that – we all know we’re competing when we’re on the skis but outside of that we’re all good friends.
SN: And you’re all in the same situation right now.
Kingsbury: For us, we’re winter athletes and our biggest event is the next Olympics, which is in 2022. In these moments, I think about the athletes that were going to compete in Tokyo in 2020. These guys are at their peak performance, they need to be at the gym or they need their facilities to train in and to … make that last little push for the summer and some of the athletes, they haven’t qualified yet.
I think it was a good call from Team Canada to pull out and now they decided to postpone until next year. In these moments, my season is over and I’m kind of like on vacation and I can just be at home and do little workouts just to stay in shape. I don’t need to train right now. I have a lot of time. My next event is in late November, early December.
SN: How are you staying busy while at home?
Kingsbury: Just watching Netflix, playing some video games, doing some workouts at home and just trying to stay healthy. I’ve been watching movies, I’ve been doing a big puzzle, just stuff that I normally wouldn’t do. I’m just taking time for myself. Every day I don’t have a schedule, I wake up, make breakfast and then I go from there. I can go run a little bit outside or just stay at home doing what I can with what I have with my little dumbbells, trying to stay in shape. It’s a lot different than what I’ve been used to coming back from the season.
SN: What are you watching on Netflix?
Kingsbury: I’m a big fan of Stranger Things. I’ve watched it before, but I’m rewatching it again.
SN: Mental training is such an important part of being a professional athlete nowadays, and I think that’s something many people currently feeling isolated are struggling with. Do you find you’re implementing some of your mental training strategies during this time?
Kingsbury: Yeah, there’s a lot of unknown stuff that we’re living through right now.
I try to not panic and not watch the news too much. You want to for sure stay alert and you’re going to read a lot of stuff on social media, but I’m just trying to stay positive. I keep in touch with my mental trainer also from back home, we do FaceTime and Skype together … What he told me was, for me, it’s the end of my season so to relax and start taking time to think about what’s next for me, what I want to do in the summer because I have a lot of time ahead of me. But yeah, just not to panic with everything, to follow what they tell us to do.
I know things are going to get better. Looking to the future, I know it’s going to be bright and everything’s going to slowly get back to normal, hopefully. I’m not being paranoid or stressed about it … I just try to stay positive about life right now.
SN: Any idea of what your off-season training might look like?
Kingsbury: For me, it’s unknown right now. I’ve spoken to my coaches and they’re looking into future options. We don’t know when the gyms are going to open.
I know in every country, everyone is in the same boat right now. It’s not a hurry to get on snow and get training for me right now, but we’re looking at options to be as productive as we can with what we’re going to have and also not putting anyone at risk. So, maybe we’re going to have to do some innovation and trying to make some quality work at home or trying to find ways to reproduce what we’re doing in the winter.
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