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Heil, Bilodeau cap worlds with gold

Jennifer Heil and Alexandre Bilodeau captured gold in their dual moguls events Saturday night in a storybook ending for the Canadian team at the freestyle world ski championships.

PARK CITY, Utah — Jennifer Heil and Alexandre Bilodeau captured gold in their dual moguls events Saturday night in a storybook ending for the Canadian team at the freestyle world ski championships.

Canada’s halfpipe skiers came up big earlier in the day, with Michael Riddle of Squamish, B.C, winning the men’s crown and Rosalind Groenewoud of Calgary claiming the women’s event.

Canada topped the medal table with 16 — eight gold, five silver and three bronze. The U.S. was second with seven medals, and China third with three.

Heil, a native of Spruce Grove defeated 19-year-old Chloe Dufour-Lapointe in the final to claim her second world title in her final appearance at the event. Heil, who won the single moguls title on Wednesday, is retiring after this season.

“To go against Chloe, who represents the future of our sport, was amazing,” said Heil.

Dufour-Lapointe dispatched Olympic champion Hannah Kearney of the U.S. to make the final. The Montreal native claimed the silver while Kearney took the bronze.

“I can’t really believe it, I am so proud of myself and so honoured to be able to ski against my hero, Jenn Heil,” Dufour-Lapointe said.

Bilodeau, from Montreal, edged 18-year-old Mikael Kingsbury of Deux-Montagnes, Que., in the men’s final to win gold. Kingsbury was skiing a course he hadn’t skied all night, and caught an edge and lost control, giving the victory to Canada’s Olympic champion.

“It feels great to win here,” said Bilodeau, the defending dual moguls world champion. “It’s super hard to defend your title when you have young guys like (Kingsbury) coming up. I’m working harder and harder to stay there, but the young guys like Mikael are pushing harder and harder too.”

The medal was the second of the four-day event for both Bilodeau and Kingsbury. Bilodeau won silver in men’s moguls on Wednesday with Kingsbury taking the bronze.

Keltie Hansen of Edmonton added a bronze in the women’s halfpipe earlier Saturday.

Riddle and Groenewoud were unfazed by the difficult weather and knowing they were competing under the watchful eyes of International Olympic Committee officials. The IOC is evaluating the sport’s viability for the 2014 Olympics.

The Canadian halfpipe skiers were left with plenty to feel good about.

“It’s a pretty cool thing, it’s a very prestigious title, it still hasn’t sunk in completely,” Riddle said of becoming a world champion. “It’s also a very exciting time in our sport with the push for the Olympics and we’re looking to be included in the next couple of months.

“Being the current world champion when we get that announcement, I can’t even comprehend it right now. It’s a huge thing, I could not be more excited.”

Groenewoud, who now lives in Squamish and studies at Quest University there, was similarly chuffed.

She felt the athletes, even while dialling down some of their tricks because of the weather, still “showed the IOC what an exciting event this is.”

Nearly two years to the day, Groenewoud crashed doing a 2 1-2 revolution (or 900 jump) on the same course, suffering a concussion. She missed a month with post-concussion syndrome and had to get past some mental hurdles in competing at the same venue again for the first time.

“Definitely,” she said. “I didn’t end up doing my 900 in qualifications because I got scared and so I knew I had to come out here today and do it. I didn’t do it in training because of the weather and I was nervous because I did it for the first time in my final run, so I was really happy that it went well to get over that mental block.”

Groenewoud was solid on both runs, capturing the win with 44.7 points on her final effort. American Jennifer Hudak earned the top qualifying spot in the final, but had to recover from a fall on her first run to claim silver with a score of 42.1 on her second.

Hansen earned bronze off a first-run score of 38.8.

“My first run went pretty clean,” she said. “I didn’t go as big as I would have like to because of the weather but everything was landed pretty clean, I think.”

Riddle was the top qualifier going into the men’s final and clinched first with 45.6 points on his first run. Kevin Rolland of France took silver by scoring 45.2 points on his second run and Simon Dumont of the U.S. earned 43.2 points on his first run to claim bronze.

Riddle performed as he planned despite wind gusts that hit about 40 km/h, but maybe didn’t get as much air as he would normally.

“The conditions today were definitely a little trying,” he said.

Asked to describe the weather, Canadian coach Trennon Paynter said, “There were moments when it felt like we were in a typhoon.”

In the backdrop of the competition was that Canadian IOC representative Walter Sieber, part of the program commission, was there to prepare an assessment of the sport for his colleagues.

Peter Judge, the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association’s CEO, spent some time lobbying Sieber and is eagerly awaiting a decision expected in April.

“His comments were that he was very impressed with the athletes and with what they were able to do,” Judge relayed. “I can be guardedly optimistic about his comments, he has to provide his report now to the IOC and I think the athletes did a great job and represented their sport tremendously.”

The Canadian team has also performed beyond expectations with eight gold medals, five silvers and three bronzes.

On Friday, Kelsey Serwa captured the women’s ski cross event ahead of Julia Murray of Whistler, B.C., while Chris Del Bosco of Sudbury, Ont., won the men’s ski cross and Warren Shouldice of Calgary claimed gold in men’s aerials.

On Thursday, Kaya Turski of Montreal captured silver in the women’s slopestyle.

And Wednesday, Heil won the women’s moguls title with Kristi Richards of Summerland, B.C., grabbing bronze, while Bilodeau earned silver in the men’s moguls with Kingsbury taking bronze.

Groenewoud was pleased to keep it going.

“I’m definitely a proud Canadian and I’m happy with how well the Canadian team has done at this event,” she said. “I’ve been keeping a tally on Canadian medals throughout this whole event and I was pretty excited each time a team member was on the podium.”