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Begg-Smith wins third consecutive World Cup title

 

Begg-Smith wins third consecutive World Cup title

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AOC

Dale Begg-Smith has won a third consecutive mogul skiing World Cup title, matching the performance of the sport’s legendary Edgar Grospiron. It is the second year in a row that Australia has claimed two freestyle World Cup titles, Jacqui Cooper also taking the aerial skiing crystal globe.

Dale Begg-Smith has won a third consecutive mogul skiing World Cup title, matching the performance of the sport’s legendary Edgar Grospiron.

Skiing in the Swedish resort of Are at the weekend, Begg-Smith followed his gold in single moguls on the Friday with a dual moguls silver on Saturday night to take his season World Cup tally to 619 points, an unbeatable lead of 149 points over nearest rival Guilbaut Colas of France, with just one event to go for the season.

The 23-year-old Perisher Blue skier and AIS scholarship athlete qualified in sixth position, drawing a first up head-to-head encounter with his French rival.

With his title aspirations on the line, Begg-Smith won that round by a convincing 25 points to 10.

He then accounted for 2007 World Champion Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau of Canada and Ruslan Sharifullin of Russia, before going down to Dmitriy Reiherd of Kazakhstan in the final.

In another remarkably consistent year, the Olympic champion has collected three victories, two silver medals and missed the top five just twice in the nine events contested so far.

It is the second year in a row that Australia has claimed two freestyle World Cup titles, Jacqui Cooper also taking the aerial skiing crystal globe (see below).

“Dale skied really well all weekend,” said Olympic Winter Institute head mogul skiing coach Steve Desovich.

“He has a few niggles in his knee after competing two days in a row, but he’s feeling pretty good, as he should be.”

“He’s had a great weekend and was on track to win this event too, but made a mistake on the bottom air.”

Begg-Smith joins French skier Edgar Grospiron, Finn Janne Lahtela and Canadian Jean-Luc Brassard as a three time World Cup title winner, but only he and Grospiron have been able to manage three in a row.

The French star collected four World Cup titles in his illustrious career, and few would be prepared to bet against Begg-Smith emulating that feat as well.

The final event of the season will take place next weekend in the Italian resort of Valmalenco.

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