Imagine this — standing on top of an Olympic podium beside your sibling.
That’s just what Montreal’s Justine Dufour-Lapointe experienced Saturday as she stood beside her sister, Chloe. Justine captured Canada’s first gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics with a score of 22.44.
Chloe managed to edge out defending Olympic champion Hannah Kearney of the U.S. for the silver medal.
Until recently, Kearney had been dominating the sport as she owned the podium for 16 straight competitions from 2011-12 Â The third Dufour-Lapointe sister, Maxime, also competed in the event and finished 12th.
The performance of Justine and Chloe marked only the third time in the history of the Winter Olympics that a sibling duo won gold and silver in the same event. Justine, 19, completed a nearly perfect run as she carved through the moguls with speed and preformed a 360-degree twist and back layout for her two jumps.
Chloe, 22, opted to execute more complex jumps, but failed to have as smooth of a run as her younger sister. Combined with Mark McMorris’s bronze earlier in the day, Canada has won a total of three medals. This puts them tied for second place with the Netherlands and behind Norway who has four medals.
After day one, safe to say that Canada is off to a strong start in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
