A crazy weekend for Perrine Laffont. The French skier became for the fifth time in her career world champion in mogul skiing by winning Sunday February 26 in Bakuriani, Georgia, the title in parallel, the day after her coronation in singles.
Perrine Laffont achieves this double for the first time in her career, after winning world gold in parallel in 2017 and 2019 and in singles in 2021. With five planetary titles, she becomes at 24 the most skier on moguls titled history ahead of Canadian Jennifer Heil and Norwegian Kari Traa, gold four times.
Less than 24 hours after her coronation in singles, the 24-year-old Pyrenean found the physical resources necessary to chain four passages on the bumps of the Georgian station. She easily dominated Finland’s Riikka Voutilainen in the eighth, Britain’s Makayla Gerken Schofield in the quarter and Austria’s Avital Carroll in the semi-finals.
In the final, she met American Jaelin Kauf, world vice-champion in singles on Saturday, and Olympic vice-champion in singles in Zhangjiakou, China, a year ago. The two skiers had faced each other in February in Deer Valley, USA, in the World Cup and Laffont came out on top. She once again dominated Kauf, to clinch the gold.
The bronze medal went to Carroll, completing an identical podium to Saturday’s single mogul event.
“I can’t believe it, doing the double at the World Championships is something you can dream of when you’re an athlete and a mogul skier. It’s awesome ! “Commented Laffont after the final. “It’s hard to believe it, because it’s so much work. A big thank you to my team, my partners, and all those who work with me, without them, I would not have succeeded. It’s crazy ! “, she added.
A year after her disappointing fourth place at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, the 2018 Olympic moguls champion (single) returns to the top, after several months of doubt during which her Chinese failure could have pushed her to end her career.
After a start to the season on the podium, but still around first place, she picked up her first victory of the season at Deer Valley, in parallel, and it was the click. She then chained another World Cup victory at Chiesa in Valmalenco, Italy, still on the sidelines, and outclassed the competition on Saturday at Bakuriani in singles.
If Laffont is on his first double at the Worlds, the Canadian Mikaël Kingsbury signed him a “triple-double”, since he doubled his gold medal on the single moguls on Saturday with a new title in parallel on Sunday, as he had done it before in 2019 and 2021. He edged out Olympic single mogul champion Walter Wallberg of Sweden, while bronze went to Australia’s Matt Graham, for the same podium as Saturday’s singles event , but in a different order.
Sixth the day before, the Frenchman Benjamin Cavet stopped in the quarter-finals on Sunday in doubles, beaten by Kingsbury.
