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Get in TouchCalgary, Alberta (December 12, 2025)The Canadian National Ski Cross Team needed just two races to claim its first win of the year, grabbing a victory on Friday with veteran Kevin Drury racing to a win at the Jean-Frederic Chapuis Ski Cross Stadium in Val Thorens.
The 2019-20 Crystal Globe winner brought the Canadian men to the podium FIS Ski Cross World Cup for the first time this season, after missing the Big Final in Thursday’s season-opening race.
The 37-year-old Drury started Friday’s big final chasing the pack, but quickly made up ground and tactically edged out his opponents to push himself over the finish line in top spot, a significant boost after quarterfinal elimination on Thursday.
Italy’s Simone Deromedis finished second, while Austria’s Tristan Takats claimed third, holding the position for the entire race. Japan’s Ryo Sugai finished in fourth to round out a tightly-contested Big Final.
“I couldn’t expect to feel anything but just grateful and excited. This was the first summer that I’ve been able to train with zero injuries, my knees feel fantastic, my shoulder is healed, and I’m kind of like myself five years ago,” Drury said after the race. “Now we want to just keep that momentum rolling, enjoy every moment of it and just see what happens.”
As for his incredible pass? “I just kind of sent it, I missed their tails by probably an inch or two, and came out with a ton of speed– I didn’t even know what to do.”
Drury’s win marked the fifth of his career and first in nearly six years, last standing atop the podium in January 2020 in Megève, FRA, the season he became Canada’s first Crystal Globe winner on the men’s side. Friday’s win also made Val Thorens the only course on which the Toronto native has won twice, doing so back in 2019.
In addition to his sixth win, the result was his 18th career podium and his fifth in the last calendar year, previously finishing third twice in Craigleith, once in Reiteralm, AUT and in last year’s Val Thorens event.
As much as the recent run of podium finishes stands out, Drury’s winnable window is also significant. Since skiing to his first World Cup podium in Arosa, SUI, in 2017, he has secured World Cup hardware across seven seasons.
Outside of Drury on the men’s side, three-time Crystal Globe winner Reece Howden progressed to the semifinals before finishing fifth in the Small Final, and Jared Schmidt was eliminated in the quarterfinal.
No Canadian women reached Friday’s Big Final after Courtney Hoffos started the season with a second-place finish on Thursday. Instead, three Canadians, Brittany Phelan, Hoffos and Hannah Schmidt were eliminated in the semifinal before finishing sixth, seventh and eighth following the Small Final.
With the first stop on the FIS Ski Cross World Cup tour wrapped up, the athletes now look to the famed night race in Arosa, SUI, where they will race under the lights on the sprint course on Dec. 16.
Next races:
Para alpine race the first downhills of the season in Santa Catarina, (ITA) December 16-17
Ski cross race December 16 n Arosa (SUI)
Women race DHx2 and SG in St. Moritz December 12-14
Men are in Val D’Isère, (FRA), for GS and SL on December 13-14