Canadian Olympic gold medalist Mikael Kingsbury of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec won the 2018 Lou Marsh Award on Tuesday. Kingsbury, who won the gold medal for Canada in men’s moguls at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, becomes the first Canadian freestyle skier to ever win the award.
Kingsbury also becomes the first athlete from Quebec since 2008 to win the Lou Marsh Award. That year wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc of Saint-Marc-des-Carrieres, Quebec won the award after she won five gold medals at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
On a personal level, I do not always agree with the panel. However in 2018, I agreed. In his addition to his Olympic gold medal, Kingsbury won four World Cup gold medals (in Calgary on January 6, in Deer Valley, Utah on January 10 and 11, and in Ruka, Finland on December 7) in men’s moguls competitions. Kingsbury’s win in Ruka was the 50th World Cup title of his remarkable men’s moguls career. In addition to winning four World Cup gold medals in moguls, Kingsbury won the gold medal in a dual moguls World Cup in Megeve, France on March 18, the Canadian Freestyle Skiing Championship in Jasper, Alberta on March 24 and the Australian New Zealand Cup in Perisher, Australia on August 28. Kingsbury also won three World Cup silver medals.
