Kearney Claims Record 15 World Cup Wins
BEIDA LAKE, CHINA (Feb.12) – Olympic champion Hannah Kearney (Norwich, VT) won her 15th consecutive FIS Freestyle World Cup Sunday in Beida Lake, China to eclipse alpine legend Ingemar Stenmark as the record holder for the longest FIS World Cup win streak in all disciplines. Mikael Kingsbury of Canada was the men’s champion.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Hannah Kearney’s (Norwich, VT) victory set all time FIS World Cup win streak with 15 consecutive victories passing Ingemar Stenmark’s mark of 14 straight set from 1978-80
- Kearney's win streak began Jan. 22, 2011 in Lake Placid, NY
- Kearney qualified for finals in first, then had a bobble in finals squeking into the Super Finals in fourth
- New Super Finals format gave Kearney the chance for another run to win
- Patrick Deneen (Cle Elum, WA) qualified in second, finished fifth
- All six U.S. women made finals. Eliza Outtrim (Hamden, CT) seventh, Heidi Kloser (Vail, CO) 12th, Brittany Loweree (Point Lookout, NY) 13th, K.C. Oakley (Piedmont, CA) 14th, and Heather McPhie (Bozeman, MT) ended 15th
- Bryon Wilson (Butte, MT) was 11th with younger brother Bradley Wilson (Butte, MT) 14th and David DiGravio (Farmington, ME) finished 16th
- Next stop on the FIS Freestyle World Cup for moguls is Naeba, Japan Feb. 18-19
QUOTES
Hannah Kearney
I had to fight today. The course wasn’t really suited for my type of skiing (small bumps and shallow pitch) so I worked on it all week. I qualified first for finals, but in the first round of finals made a mistake on the second mogul. Luckily, with all my competitive experience I knew that it was never over till it’s over. I pulled it together and skied a really clean run from there down.
I made the Super Finals in fourth place and had to really ski for my life. I skied aggressively and went really big off the bottom air and was rewarded with the victory.
It’s insane. I had no idea about the record. It’s great to have this record as a freestyle skier. Alpine has a lot more races thus more opportunities to start a streak. That is the biggest honor that I can possibly receive considering all the amazing athletes that have crossed through the FIS World Cup circuit throughout the years.
Garth Hager, U.S. moguls coach
Hannah scored the highest in her first run. For the finals, that is when the light went and she slipped on the inside ski missing a turn. She had a really good run from there down and made the Super Finals in fourth.
She (Hannah Kearney) usually skis best when she has a challenge or task to improve on, it makes her hungry to perform. The result of that was a really clean run in the round of four.
The day started off pretty well, we had a lot of skiers get into the finals. As the round of 16 started the light went down and was highlighting just the tops of the bumps, leading to little mistakes which took most of our men out of their lines.
RESULTS
Official Results