Mickel, Walczyk Lead Team USA in Dual Moguls
Team USA’s Charlie Mickel finished sixth and Dylan Walczyk was seventh in the inaugural men’s Olympic dual moguls at the Livigno Aerials and Moguls Park Sunday.
Canada’s Mikel Kingsbury, the greatest mogul skier of all time, won Olympic gold - his fifth career Olympic medal - with a solid run that didn’t really matter, as Japan’s Ikuma Horishima blew out in the big final and settled for silver. In the small final, Australia’s Matt Graham took the dual moguls bronze, ousting Japan’s Takuya Shimakawa 20-15.
Mickel’s day started off slowly, but once he stood in the start gate, things turned around for the 21-year-old Park City, Utah, athlete. “All around, I am proud of the way I skied,” Mickel said. “I was quite tired this morning, and honestly, I was a little discouraged from the singles event. So I felt like I started in a bit of a hole and had some rough training runs.
“Before my first dual, I took some time for myself, just to try and get a bit centered,” he added. “I said to myself, ‘I know I can do this. I know that my skiing is capable of being some of the best.’ So I focused on what would lead me to the best runs, and I got pretty close to skiing them.”
In his best run of the day, Mickel ousted Australia’s Cooper Woods, who won the individual moguls Olympic gold medal earlier this week in a tie-breaker with Kingsbury. “That was big for sure…I went into that dual super determined and ready to give it everything I had,” Mickel said.
In the quarterfinals, Mickel went up against Graham in a tight dual, but he came out on the losing end of the score, 20-15.
Walczyk laid down some solid runs to advance to the quarterfinals, where he came up against Horishima. “I was super-stoked, and I believed in it,” Walczyk said of his march toward the quarterfinals. “I felt great, at 32 (years old), you don’t always feel alive, so it was nice to get that feeling out there.”
This was Walczyk’s second Olympics, and the first for Mickel, who is already focusing on the 2030 Games.
“Just just coming here and skiing this event it made me realize how much opportunity there is, and the possibilities that I have,” Mickel said. “it was a little bit eye opening coming to the Olympics and seeing like how much spotlight you really get at this event and it it definitely is motivating for me to just try to take every single day as an opportunity to get better from now until the next Games.”
RESULTS
Men’s Olympic dual moguls
