Canada's Mikaël Kingsbury upset by young Swede, captures silver in freestyle skiing moguls at Beijing Olympics

We've got ourselves an Olympic upset.

Canadian moguls star Mikaël Kingsbury settled for silver at the Beijing Winter Games on Saturday, failing to repeat as Olympic champion after a first-place finish four years ago.

The 29-year-old Kingsbury was a heavy favourite in the men's freestyle skiing moguls event, but was topped by 21-year-old Swede Walter Wallberg.

In his final run, Kingsbury scored 82.18, which put him first with one skier to go. The final contestant, Wallberg, scored 82.23 to take home the gold for Sweden. Japan's Ikuma Horishima earned bronze with a score of 81.48.

Kingsbury appeared to portend gold in the opening round of qualifying, where he posted 81.15 points and advanced directly to the men’s final rounds. He followed that up with scores of 81.78 and 79.59 in the two rounds leading up to the finals, respectively.

While he did not come away with first place at the podium, Kingsbury’s road to these Olympic games is another accomplishment he can be proud of. The precocious skier sustained two broken vertebrae in his back late in 2020 while training, but, like all the great ones, he was sanguine, and entered the 2022 Olympics with eight World Cup podium finishes for the season thus far.

Unfortunately, the Quebec native was unable to join fellow Canadian Alex Bilodeau as the only other men’s moguls skier to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals, but he did become the first male moguls skier to win three Olympic medals, as he also won silver in 2014.

Along with his still-unparalleled Olympic success, Kingsbury has 101 podium finishes on the World Cup circuit, six world championships and 18 Crystal Globes.

With Kingsbury's silver medal, Canada officially notches its second podium in these Olympic Games. Isabelle Weidemann won bronze in the women’s 3000m speed skating earlier on Saturday.

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