Hannah Kearney finishes World Cup career with another moguls win

Hannah Kearney won the race, tied the record and took home another crystal globe. Make that two crystal globes.

The world’s most consistent moguls skier for the last decade closed her World Cup career Sunday with a victory in a dual moguls contest in France, giving her 46 wins to tie American Donna Weinbrecht’s 18-year-old record for most career moguls victories.

The 29-year-old Kearney, who will retire after the U.S. championships this month, also won the season title in both moguls and the overall freestyle race. She now has 10 crystal globes — six for moguls and four for the overall title — over a World Cup career that has spanned 13 seasons.

“To me, it’s almost perfect,” Kearney said. “Records are important to me because I think they are a testament to your training and results. Being even in the same category as Donna is huge. I never would have guessed that I would be compared to her.”

Kearney, who lives in Norwich, Vt., won the Olympic gold medal in 2010 but settled for bronze last year. That third-place finish in Sochi, Russia, was a disappointment but it’s not the way she’s ending her career.

“It was a fairytale ending, to win both globes,” she said

Weinbrecht said she first met Kearney at a camp in the spring of 2002, when her career was coming to an end and Kearney’s was just beginning.

“I saw her evolve to the point where she took control of the sport, pushing the envelope of moguls skiing,” Weinbrecht said. “I was so happy and proud then and am absolutely delighted now, to be sharing the record for World Cup wins with such an accomplished athlete.”

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Alex Pullin of Australia and Dominique Maltais of Canada won snowboardcross World Cup events in Veysonnaz, Switzerland. Pullin and Maltais each won all their qualifying rounds in the Swiss Alps and followed up with victories in the big finals.

Pullin finished ahead of Lucas Eguibar of Spain, who won Saturday’s event and leads the World Cup standings. Kevin Hill of Canada repeated his third place from Saturday.

Maltais, the Sochi Olympics silver medalist who was fourth on Saturday, was followed by French racers Nelly Moenne Loccoz and Chloe Trespeuch, who filled the podium places for a second straight day.

Moenne Loccoz leads the World Cup standings ahead of Maltais heading into the final event next weekend at La Molina, Spain.

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Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway won a men’s World Cup slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, while Marcel Hirscher recovered from a disappointing first run to place sixth and extend his lead in the overall standings.

Kristoffersen, who successfully defended his junior world titles in slalom and GS this week, was third after the opening leg. He used a strong final run to finish in a total time of 1 minute, 41.26 seconds for his third career win, beating 2010 Olympic champion Giuliano Razzoli of Italy by 0.24 seconds.

Mattias Hargin of Sweden dropped from first to third, trailing the Norwegian by 0.86.

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Marit Bjoergen of Norway completed a dominant cross-country World Cup season by winning the concluding 30-kilometer freestyle race at Holmenkollen, Norway, after pulling away from world champion Therese Johaug near the end.

Bjoergen and Johaug were in a two-way duel after leaving the rest of the field far behind, and the six-time Olympic champion decided the race with an attack in the final big uphill section. She finished in 1 hour, 14 minutes, 10.5 seconds, beating Johaug by 11.6 seconds.

Bjoergen finished the season with all three crystal globes, winning the overall World Cup by a massive margin and topping both the sprint and distance standings. She also won her first Tour de Ski title, to go with two gold medals at last month’s world championships.

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Sjinkie Knegt of the Netherlands and South Korea’s Choi Minjeong won the men’s and women’s overall titles Sunday at the short-track speedskating world championships.

In a tense finish, Knegt beat his closest rival Park Se-yeong of South Korea by 0.023 seconds in the final 3,000-meter race to become the first European-born skater to win the men’s overall title since 1991. China’s Wu Dajing took the bronze, while defending champion Viktor An of Russia had to settle for ninth.

In the women’s event, Choi’s dominant all-round performance over two days of races gave her a first overall title, ahead of Italy’s Arianna Fontana and defending champion Shim Suk-hee of South Korea.

China won the women’s relay and South Korea the men’s relay.