Women’s moguls: Hannah Kearney to the fore

Ten of the 12 skiers who will contest the women’s moguls final on Saturday booked their places in today’s qualifiers at Rosa Khutor, including reigning Olympic champion Hannah Kearney.

The American skier was in fine form, producing a fluid performance with some perfectly executed jumps, to record a score of 76.83% under the floodlights of the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

The main challenge to Kearney came from two of the Dufour-Lapointe sisters, Chloé (2nd) and Justine (3rd). And their older sibling, Maxime, finished 8th to ensure that the Canadian trio, or “3SDL” as they are affectionately known back home, will all contest the final, keeping alive their dream of a family one-two-three on the podium!

Perrine Laffont causes a stir

The talk of the qualifiers was 15-year old French skier Perrine Laffont, who surprised everyone by taking fifth place and with it a place in the final. Also through to the final are Kazakhstan’s Yulia Galysheva (6th), Japan’s four-time Olympian Aiko Uemura (7th), Canada’s Audrey Robichaud (9th) and Russian Regina Rakhmova (10th).

The 10 skiers who finished between 11th and 20th place will go into a second qualifying round early on Saturday evening to decide who claims the remaining two berths in the final. Czech skier Nikola Sudova (11th) and Italy’s Deborah Scanzio (13th) will be among the favourites to take the last two places.

The final of the women’s moguls is scheduled to take place on Saturday at 22h00 local time.