Mikael Kingsbury of Team Canada competes in the men's freestyle skiing moguls finals on Thursday.David Ramos/Getty Images
If there were a sports god, he or she would have awarded two golds in the men’s Olympic moguls final.
In the jaw-dropping medal race Thursday in Livigno, both Canada’s Mikaël Kingsbury and Cooper Woods of Australia finished with exactly the same score – 83.71.
Kingsbury, 33, was one of eight finalists in the second round, and was the seventh to start his run. Knowing that Milan Cortina was his last Olympics, and well aware of the meagre medal showing among the Canadians so far, he put his heart, his soul and his competitive animal instincts into overdrive and went for it.
His run was near-perfect and the commentators were in awe. “Absolutely flawless … absolute A-game,” one of them blared over the loudspeaker.
At that point, even the judges no doubt thought he had won gold. The audience certainly did. They cheered loudly; the Canadian contingent, which included Kingsbury’s family from Quebec, nearly collapsed in excitement.
But the moguls game was not over.
Up next – and last – was Woods. The 25-year-old was considered a fine skier – he finished sixth in moguls in Beijing in 2022 – but certainly lacked the all-round speed, aerial and turning skills of Kingsbury. The Canadian’s CV was cluttered with a record 100 World Cup victories and four Olympic medals, one of them gold.
There was no way that Woods could snatch gold from Kingsbury and the crowd knew that. Or so everyone thought.
But Woods’s run was near-perfect, too. The audience gasped when the Aussie punched his fist in the air at the finish, then went silent while the judges tallied the scores. They realized at that point that the moguls final had turned into a shootout.
Woods emerged with the identical score. Now what? Could there be two winners, everyone asked. Moments later, when Woods’s name popped on top of the standings chart, with Kingsbury in second position, the Canadians in the audience and Kingsbury himself were crushed. It turns out that the score for the turns is used by the judges as a tie-breaker, and Woods scored ever-so-slightly higher on that front.
In other words, Kingsbury placed second on a mere rule technicality.
“I’ve never seen it,” Kingsbury told reporters after the event, referring to losing despite obtaining an identical score to his competitor’s. “I’ve never seen it in a World Cup, never seen a decider like that.”
Woods seemed just as surprised by the result as Kingsbury was, knowing that Kingsbury was history’s top mogul basher and would not hold back in his final singles race.
“Mikaël’s a wonderful person, he’s a great role model and he’s the GOAT, he’s the best skier in the world, so I just tried to stay focused and be disciplined with my cues for the day and I can’t believe we tied, it’s pretty crazy,” he said.
Kingsbury tried to put on a good face and said all the right things after the shock of silver had worn off a bit. “I worked very hard for that one,” he said. “I’m 33, I’m not getting any younger and I can still fight even with an injury. I’m very proud of myself. It was a lot of work to be standing on that Olympic podium and super close to being an Olympic champion.”
He had another comment to make.
“I’m very proud to be Canadian. I had chills in the Olympic opening ceremony when I was holding the flag,” he said. “There’s a part of me that wanted to win the first gold for the country.”
Kingsbury would have been the GOAT even if he did not show up in Milan Cortina. In three previous Olympics (Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022) he won two silvers and a gold. With another silver around his neck, he becomes the first male Olympian to win four freestyle medals.
And a fifth could come. On Saturday in Livigno, he competes in the dual moguls, a new Olympic event. He is looking forward to it, not just because the one-on-one race appeals to his hyper-competitive instincts, but because he would like to end his Olympic career with a gold. Why wouldn’t he?
“I am going to give my all in that race,” he said. He always does.
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