Anthony and Horishima open Alpe d’Huez weekend with wins

Second place on the day went to Anri Kawamura (JPN) for her second podium of the season, while Tess Johnson (USA) rounded out the women’s podium in third place for her first top-3 finish since last year’s Deer Valley event.

Despite contending for a spot on the podium on Friday, local fans’ favourite Perrine Laffont had a nasty-looking crash in the middle section of the course. Fortunately the reining World Cup champion didn’t hurt herself and she will be looking to redeem herself in Saturday’s dual moguls.

It was also an interesting contest over on the men’s side, where the Japanese team almost swept the podium with Ikuma Horishima, Daichi Hara and Kosuke Sugimoto all sitting in respective first, second and third place, with only one rider left in the big final.

And that rider was Mikael Kingsbury, who stormed through the course to set the fastest time in the finals, coming to the finish line in less than 20 seconds and over two seconds faster than the rest of the pack.

Kingsbury sent it massively off the bottom air and landed a little bit back-seated, which was reflected in the judges’ score who would put him in the third place at the end of the day, thus spoiling the Japanese podium sweep party.

With Kingsbury in third, Horishima consequently clinched his second victory of the season, while Daichi Hara made a spectacular come back on the World Cup podium, for his first top-3 since his double bronze medal performance at Utah 2019 World Championships in Deer Valley.