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Begg-Smith to face familiar foes

 

Begg-Smith to face familiar foes

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AOC
Begg-Smith to face familiar foes

FREESTYLE - MOGULS: In his quest for a history-making third Olympic medal, Dale Begg-Smith will be up against some familiar foes in the men's moguls event at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games.

FREESTYLE - MOGULS: In his quest for a history-making third Olympic medal, Dale Begg-Smith will be up against some familiar foes in the men's moguls event at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. The biggest threat will come from Canadian pair Mikael Kingsbury and Alexandre Bilodeau, who have both dominated the sport since the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, winning 28 of 49 World Cup events that have taken place.

Bilodeau will be aiming to become the first Freestyle skier to ever defend his gold medal, which he won four years ago in Vancouver. The home-town Russian favourite will be Alexandr Smyshlyaev, who is also a regular visitor to the podium. Other athletes to watch include American athlete Patrick Deneen, Sho Endo of Japan and Dmitriy Reihard of Kazakhstan, who all have the potential to deliver an upset. 

Australia has qualified four athletes in total in the men's event, the maximum number for a nation to enter for a freestyle event. Begg-Smith, Matt Graham and Brodie Summers are all in strong form, having posted finals performances in World Cup events during January. The fourth competitor for Australia, Sam Hall, placed in the top-10 at last year's World Championships, showing he too is also competitive with the world's best.

Since the last Olympic Games in Vancouver, the format for the event has changed, with there now being three finals rounds to decide the medals, where in Vancouver there was just the one final. 

This new format has been criticised by a number of athletes, due to a reduction in overall performance quality in the final medal round and risk of injury from the taxing number of runs undertaken.

After training in Sochi, Patrick Deneen commented on the new format.  

"Going into later rounds it’s a grind," he said. "To lay down that many runs at your peak is tough. That was the big controversy: one run in the final to three runs in the final. Just laying down your best run time after time after time is a lot tougher than going out once." The men's moguls event takes place on Monday 10 February, Day 3 of the Games.

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