The Canadian king of mogul skiing, Mikaël Kingsbury, and the “royal” Dufour-Lapointe sisters, are polishing their skis with the objective of repeating, on January 25, the successes they had in the World Cup of Mont-Tremblant – the top tier competition of their season during the past two years.

Mikaël, “the king” – who has altogether eight world cups in as many seasons and close to 60 victories to his credit – finished second at the first Mont-Tremblant Ski Resort competition in 2018 and regained his usual place on the throne by winning the competition in January 2019.

Justine Dufour-Lapointe, for her part, climbed to the top of the podium in 2018 and took the bronze medal last season (2019), just ahead of her sister Chloé, who took sixth place in 2018.

These successes are due not only to luck, but to a stated intent by the three athletes to do well at the only World Cup event to be presented at their home province, Québec.

“It’s always exciting to ski at home. You feel a bit of extra pressure because you want to do well before your own people, but I like that,” said Mikaël Kingbury after his win at the World Cup in Ruka, Finland, last December 7, in response to questions from Tremblant Express. “I’m looking forward to the World Cup of Tremblant; there’s an amazing atmosphere there. I’ve had some success on that run, too, so I hope to repeat this year.”

Between two training session in Thaiwoo, China, Justine Dufour-Lapointe stated, “I adore competing at home. Seeing my family, friends and supporters at the base of the slopes fills me with joy and gratitude. I want even more to outdo myself to show them why I train so hard all year. The ambience gives me an incredible boost of adrenaline.”

And what does Chloé say, also speaking live from China? “It’s really great to be able to compete close to home. We have one race a year where the crowd carries us. Québec spectators are warm and generous and that makes a difference.”

Retired for the past year and now studying medicine, the oldest of the Dufour-Lapointe sisters, Maxime, will be at the foot of the course on the January 25 weekend. “I’ll be the number one fan and supporter for my sisters at Mont-Tremblant. I’m going to yell the loudest for them,” she assured us.

From an organizational standpoint, everything is in place to make the competition a success, says Marc Monchamp, delegate producer of the event. He doesn’t anticipate any major modifications to the formula used for the 2019 event.

“We made some adjustments last year to maximize the spectators’ view, and that worked well. And again this year we’ll raise the start by six metres and lengthen the course by 25 metres to make it more competitive.”

Like just about everybody, Mr. Monchamp would like to be able to present the event closer to the alpine village, but he says the configuration of the mountain won’t allow it.

“There’s no doubt that spectator access remains a challenge, but we made major progress with that last year. The walk up is more enjoyable, which meant that about 2,000 people accessed the site this way in 2019, whereas there were fewer than 1,000 in 2018.”