After a long and intense season with eleven single races and one team event so far, the FIS Ski Cross World Cup comes to an end at one of our new stops on the tour in Craigleith, Canada. Craigleith is a small private ski resort in Ontario, Canada just 15 minutes away from Collingwood.
From 16 – 18 March the best ski cross athletes of the world will fight for two last times for the medals. Besides that, we will also award the top three women and men, the Rockies of the years and the best nation of this season after our final race on Saturday.
Fourth crystal globe for Naeslund
With 900 points and a margin of 359 points in front of the second placed, the crystal globe is already in Sandra Naeslund’s hands before the last two races have even started. The Swede won every single race she was competing this season. In fact, nine world cups, the world championships single event and the world championships team event. She is the lone record holder of most wins in a row in ski sport, in total seventeen, she won 63 world cups, which no one achieved before, and she is only 26 years old.
The only race Naeslund didn’t win this season was the last world cup in Veysonnaz, as she didn’t start due to knee problems. We hope she fully recovered and we will see some amazing skiing from her in the last two races this season. But one is clear, after all these achievements, she deserves this globe more than anyone else.
The fight for the second position in the overall ranking is still open. Currently we can find Fanny Smith (SUI) in second position with 541 points and Marielle Thompson (CAN) in third position with 524 points. This means only 17 points separate the two from each other which means almost nothing and a super exciting battle for second and third position at the back-to-back races here in Canada.
Smith already won the crystal globe in 2019 and in 2021. As Naeslund didn’t start in the last race, Smith is the only women who won a world cup race this season next to the Swede. Besides that, within the last eleven races Smith reached the big final seven times. Next to her victory she got second twice, third once and fourth for three times.
Thompson won the crystal globe once in 2017 and landed in third position the last four seasons. With three second places, and two third places, the Canadian stood on the podium five times this season.
In fourth position we can find the German Daniela Maier with 387 points. Under normal conditions, she will not have a chance to catch up these 137 points in two races.
Hard battle on men’s side
On men’s side of things, the battle for the crystal globe as well as for the third position is still ongoing.
Currently, it’s Reece Howden (CAN) who sits in first position in the overall ranking. With 596 points, Howden is only 57 points in front of runner-up David Mobaerg (SWE) who earned 539 points so far.
Howden already won the overall world cup once in 2021. In the last race in Veysonnaz, Howden got third and in total he stood on the podium six times this season so far. He has two victories, three second places and one third place on his list.
23-year-old David Mobaerg’s (SWE) biggest achievements this season are for sure the world championship title in the team event together with his teammate Naeslund and the victory on home soil in Idre Fjäll, where he stood on the podium for the first time with his older brother Erik. David Mobaerg is the male athlete who won the most world cup races this season, in fact three, the last one in Veysonnaz, one of the Reiteralm races and as mentioned on home soil. Besides that, he got third in Arosa.
When we look at their prosecutors, the next one in the list is the German Wilmsmann with already 161 points behind the Swede, in fact 378 points. In fourth position we can find Mathias Graf with 339 points, but as he is not racing in Canada he will not earn any points and so will fall back in the ranking. The only athletes who can contest the third place of Wilmsmann are Ryo Sugai (JPAN) with 329 points and Youri Duplesses Kergomard (FRA) with 290 points. 88 points may sound a lot, but we have two races ahead and as we now from the past we have a super strong field of men, and everyone can win. 88 points means, one athlete falls out in the first round and the other one stands on the podium twice.
So don’t forget to tune in and see the battle between second and third place on women’s side and first and second and the third place on men’s side.
Will Canada win nations cup on home soil?
When we look at the overall ranking for the nations cup, Canada is clearly in front. With 3.160 points they are 1.029 points in front of their persecutor Team Switzerland. Currently in third position we can already find the small Team of Sweden with 1.908 points.
As it is a home race for Canada, they are allowed to bring in more racers for the race on Friday. This means with 20 athletes on the list they are the biggest nation starting and so have the chance to make a lot of points the next days.
Looks like Canada can celebrate that they are the most successful nation of the ski cross season 2022/23 on home soil.
Besides all the battles for awards, we also have to look at the last races with one smiling and one crying eye as Olympic champion from 2018, vice world champion from 2019 and 5 times world cup winner Brady Leman announced his retirements after these two races on home soil. Leman was part of the ski cross family ever since and was racing in the world cup for the Canadian team for 14 years. We want to say congrats on an amazing carer, thank you for all the great moments and all the best for the future.
Crystal globe winner season 2021/22: Sandra Naselund (SWE) and Ryan Regez (SUI)
Qualification for the first race on Friday will go down on Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 11:00 LOC / 16:00 CET women and at 11:30 LOC / 16:30 CET men. Pre-Heats for the race on Saturday will go down immediately before the race. Qualification runs and Pre-heats can be followed via FIS App or on our website via live timing.
WATCH Finals LIVE (subject to change)
Friday, 17.03.2023 at 12:00 LOC / 17:00CET:
TV info coming soon (please check back for detailed TV info)
