Dufour-Lapointe sisters win gold and silver, McMorris takes bronze
Posted Feb 8, 2014 2:07 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Two skiing sisters and a snowboard star fighting a broken rib gave Canada’s Olympians the strong start they desired in Sochi.
Canada earned a medal of every colour Saturday on the opening day of Olympic medal competition. Montreal’s Justine Dufour-Lapointe led the way, flying to gold in the women’s moguls.
Chloe Dufour-Lapointe wasn’t far behind her sister, taking silver and relegating defending champion Hannah Kearney of the United States to bronze.
“It feels amazing,” Chloe said of being on the podium with her sister. “It happened at the World Cup, but now it’s at the Olympics. We had to do three runs and we did it together. We’re just really happy.”
Earlier, snowboarder Mark McMorris of Regina overcame a rough opening run in the men’s slopestyle final, capping a trying couple of weeks with a bronze-medal performance.
The early haul put Canada into a tie for second in the medal standings with the Netherlands at one gold, one silver and one bronze. Norway has one additional gold to lead after the first day.
Early success is crucial to the Canadian team, which some predict will win more medals in Sochi than it did four years ago at the highly successful Vancouver Games. Canada started slow in Vancouver with just one silver on the first day before finishing with 26 medals, including a record 14 gold.
Canada will almost certainly add to its medal haul Sunday, when the final three events of figure skating team competition take place. Canada is currently in silver-medal position after second-place finishes in the short dance and free pairs skates and a fifth in the women’s short on Saturday.
Justine Dufour-Lapointe saved her best performance for the six-athlete final. While she looked tentative in the early runs, she blazed down the course when it counted. The combination of her speed, handling of the moguls and jumps — a 360-degree twist and a back layout — gave her a score of 22.44 points.
“I really gave it my all,” said Justine. “I felt the pressure, but I tried to just put that away and I said, ‘You know what, I’m going to roar and people will see me and remember who the real Justine is.’”
Chloe who finished fifth at the Vancouver Games and was the only sister with Olympic experience, had more complex jumps but her run wasn’t as smooth. She scored 21.66.
Kearney went last, with a chance to become the first woman to win back-to-back gold medals in 22-year history of Olympic moguls. But she made a mistake on her first jump and couldn’t make it up later on the course.
A third Dufour-Lapoint sister, Maxime, failed to make the final six along with Audrey Robichaud of Quebec City.
McMorris, meanwhile, was expected to win a medal in the men’s slopestyle event, but his route to the bronze was hardly textbook.
He broke a rib just a few weeks before the start of the Games, then overcame a difficult qualifying run and a fall in his first run of the final.
