Less than two months after suffering a fractured two vertebrae, Michael Kingsbury is already preparing to return to competition.
Barring a turnaround, Olympic freestyle skiing champion at the World Cup will line up in Deer Valley, scheduled for February 4-5.
Kingsbury exits a training camp with the Canadian team at Val San Como, where he spent 10 days at the Mughal poles without much pain.
On Saturday, he will fly to Calgary, where he will attend another camp for a week before heading to Utah. One and a duel in the program.
“It should be going well [à Calgary]But the way things went in Val Saint-Comé, I’m sure I’ll be at the starting gate in the Abbey Valley, “he said Journalism Thursday morning.
On November 29, the 28-year-old was injured during relegation training for a jump ahead of the season-opening World Cup in Ruka, Finland.
After six weeks, x-rays showed that the T4 and T5 vertebrae had joined together perfectly, an indication that the ciliates could be repositioned.
In addition to the preliminary stage, Kingsbury missed two races in Sweden to the point where he is 172 points behind Swedes Ludwig Fjallström and Japanese Ekuma Horishima.
With so many events canceled due to the pandemic, the man with the nine consecutive crystal balls finds his catch-up goal going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Once again, the International Skating Federation announced on Thursday the cancellation of the stopover in Tazawaku, Japan, scheduled for March 6-7.
“My goal is to be the one who scores the most points from the moment I return until the end of the season,” said Quebec, who was riding a wave of 107 starts in a row before his injury. . “We’ll see where he takes me.”
Kingsbury also learned disappointedly Aborting the planned World Championships in Calgary at the end of February, which was to replace those scheduled on the Olympic track in Beijing.
“It’s boring because my motivation to come back was to tell myself that this year was pretty much the only title I could get.”
A two-time gold medalist from Deer Valley in 2019 was a real-life. “It’s not like my expectations are high. I also knew the regulation was going to be complicated. I couldn’t do anything about it. It just makes sure that I will be the world champion for another two years. It’s not a problem.”
For now, Kingsbury just wants to be able to settle at the top of the coveted Deer Valley Tournament on February 4 without feeling any fear for his back. “It will be possible to win, but I’m not putting pressure on myself,” assured the skater, with 63 victories.