Canada’s Mikaël Kingsbury Is Ready to Go Out As ‘The King’ of Olympic Mogul Skiing

A medalist at three different Winter Games, the Quebec native is looking for another medal to cap a legendary career as the most decorated of all time in his discipline.

Mikaël Kingsbury has medaled in each of the last three Winter Games, including a silver at Beijing 2022. | Jack Gruber-Imagn Images

A legend of moguls skiing, Mikaël Kingsbury is obsessed. 

You can see it in his eyes as he studies the staggered rhythm of moguls courses around the world. It’s a dialed-in yet relaxed look, analyzing every bump ahead. It’s an obsession with himself, his craft and his victories that few others possess. 

And it has him in the history books alongside American stars Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn, and few others, as he skis at what could be his fourth and final Olympic Games at 33 years old. 

“It’s in a positive, healthy way. He is just so driven to be the best and not at the expense of anybody else, but really just focused on himself,” says Freestyle Ski Canada CEO Peter Judge. “Having stars like that can have a profound impact on any franchise or organization. … Look at LeBron James and the L.A. Lakers or Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs.

“Even in hard times, if you’ve got that, that marquee player or athlete, there’s an attention and a cachet that goes along with that and brings everything else up to a higher level.”

Kingsbury was the flagbearer for Team Canada at the Milan Cortina opening ceremony. | Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

The most decorated freestyle skier of all time, Kingsbury has 29 Crystal Globes, awarded to the best skier in a discipline on the World Cup, the highest level of the sport. He also has 100 World Cup wins, nine world championship titles, an Olympic gold and two silver medals. 

At Milan Cortina 2026, he has a chance to win two medals in the traditional individual event, as well as the newly introduced dual moguls competition after he carried the flag into the opening ceremony. 

While Vonn and Shiffrin have become icons by chasing times, Kingsbury’s challenge combines speed, precision, power, flight and acrobatics, all factors he fixates on through every moment. 

Yet, these Olympics are different. “The King”—as some call him, like LeBron James—says he is “95% sure” that these are his final Games.  His entire family is there with him, unlike the COVID-19-impacted Beijing Games. That includes his son, Henrik, who was born in 2024, making a striking difference in his Olympic experience since his debut silver medal at Sochi 2014. 

Kingsbury recently became a dad ahead of his fourth Winter Olympics. | Millo Moravski/Agence Zoom/Getty Images

“When he wins, he has the same smile as when he won his first medal when he was young, it’s the same thing, but it’s just at another level,” his mother, Julie Thibaudeau, says. “As parents, when we see them so happy about themselves, that’s all we want. The first time that I saw him with the Olympic medal, I saw his same little face, the same smile, except more people were watching.”

Success From Quebec 

A native of Deux-Montagnes, Quebec, Kingsbury was inspired by Salt Lake City 2002. Those Games sparked him to put a sign up in his bedroom, reading “Je vais gagner,” French for “I will win.”

Eight years later, he would get his first run down the Olympic bumps, still long before his first official Olympic debut. On a brisk evening during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, he was one of several forerunners, often a role given to developing athletes, to test the course before the Olympians. 

His parents didn’t fly out to watch because there was no guarantee he would ski. 

As the event neared, the 17-year-old Kingsbury got his chance and turned some heads. He quickly called his mom to tell her the news, only for the sport in Canada to change on that same course in the hours that followed. 

“He called me just after, and he told me: ‘Mom, I have a name now, a lot of people saw me skiing.’ ” Thibaudeau says. “I thought it was cute.”

Following his forerun, Canadian eyes turned to Alexandre Bilodeau, who grew up with a cottage a few blocks away from the Kingsbury family’s in Saint-Sauveur, Quebec, just north of Montreal. Bilodeau’s younger sister also foreran that day, and the 22-year-old at his second Olympics knew about a young Kingsbury’s rise.

Yet, it was his day. With a blistering white mouth guard, a quick grin and an aggressive run, Bilodeau delivered in front of a cacophonous crowd, making history as the first Canadian to win a gold medal at a home Olympics, after Canadian athletes fell short at Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988. 

A teenage Kingsbury looked on, having made his World Cup debut earlier that year. Four years later, he would be on the Olympic podium, belting out the Canadian anthem with a silver medal as a genuine friendly rival to Bilodeau, who defended his gold in Sochi.

Both from Quebec, Kingsbury (left) and Bilodeau (center) raised the level of the Canadian mogul skiing tradition. | Guy Rhodes-Imagn Images

“There was never frustration with us, but definitely a rivalry in the last few years of my career. We knew if both of us pulled out a good run, nobody else in the world could touch us,” Bilodeau recalls, now watching his third Winter Olympics as an accountant after retiring in 2014. 

“I wanted to focus on making the best performance I could, and Mikaël was focused on his performance and raising the bar all the time. He helped me push myself even further than I ever thought, so I think that’s a healthy rivalry, and I think that’s what we felt all the way to Sochi and even our last World Cup together.”

A Skiing Legend’s Last Ride

Growing up practically as neighbours, Bilodeau and Kingsbury are just the latest moguls skiing greats from their corner of the world. The province of Quebec, the only primarily French-speaking province in Canada, has dominated moguls for nearly 40 years. 

Before them, it was Lillehammer 1992 Olympic champion Jean-Luc Brassard, who won 47 World Cup events from 1990 to 2004 and set the stage of excellence for the province and the country, hailing from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, just an hour drive away from Deux-Montagnes. 

“It’s been a passing of the torch thing that I think has deep roots and crystallized moguls skiing as a significant entity,” adds Judge. “The infrastructure and the pool that is built over time in Quebec has been a continuum that’s continued to produce a strong lineage of athletes.”

That reign of excellence could be coming to an end after the Milan Cortina Olympics. There are promising young Canadians, but nobody has yet proven to be that commanding. 

Still, Quebec’s dominance and this generation of moguls skiing will have at least one more moment—and one more rush for Kingsbury as he attacks the slopes in Livigno in search of another Olympic medal.

---