Alexandre Bilodeau

Bilodeau was a member of the Canadian moguls team going to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.[8] He started the competition on Sunday, February 14 in favourable conditions. This was in contrast to the previous day for the women in which they skied in rain, sleet, and generally slushy conditions. Bilodeau finished the qualification run in 2nd place overall.[9] In the final run, Bilodeau threw a back double full on the first jump and followed it with a back iron cross on the second. His jump and style scores combined with the second fastest run of the night, saw him scoring 26.75 points to win the gold. With the gold he became the first Canadian to win a gold medal during a Canadian-hosted Olympics.[10]

The gold medal victory elicited celebrations across Vancouver and Canada. Canadians celebrated around the Vancouver Olympic cauldron and crowds spilled onto Robson Street in downtown Vancouver waving the flag and singing the Canadian national anthem.[11] 22,000 people entered BC Place Stadium the next day to witness his medal presentation.[12] Following his Olympic medal Bilodeau together with Jennifer Heil made a $25,000 donation to charity. Bilodeau chose to give his to Canadian Association of Pediatric Health Centres for cerebral palsy.[13] Bilodeau and Heil encouraged others to give to charity saying that they have the ability to give back and if others were to help in their own way it would make a difference.[13]

Bilodeau's victory over Dale Begg-Smith at the Olympics lead to some complaints about biased-judging from members of the Australian coaching staff.[14][15][16] The Australian coaches were also critical of the judging in the women's aerials event.[17] They called into question the system for training judges, and suggested that judges for big events should be ex-athletes from the sport being competed.[18]

Bilodeau did not win a World Cup event during the 2009–10 season and finished fourth in the World Cup standings with 347 points, behind winner Dale Begg-Smith, who accumulated 693 points.[19] The following season, Bilodeau finished on the podium several times leading up to the World Championships. At the Worlds, Bilodeau won the silver medal in the moguls event, finishing ahead of countryman Mikaël Kingsbury.[20] Bilodeau would next compete in the dual moguls event at the World Championships. He advanced through to final where he found himself competing head-to-head with Kingsbury. Bilodeau went on to win the gold and defend his world title in the dual moguls event after Kingsbury fell navigating the moguls.

He confirmed at the TV show "Droit au but" that the 2014 Olympics would be his last.[21] He had taken time away from the sport to focus on his studies for an accounting career at Concordia University. Bilodeau had a lot to say about the potential retirement commenting "Right now, I'm struggling a little bit with the results, but my skiing is there — I'm a better skier than I've ever been. I'm not in a rush. I know it's a process to get to Sochi, and that's my goal. It's going to be one of the last races of my career and of my life, so I think what's important is to have fun. I thought before 2010 I was retiring, I was doing the 2011 season and then retiring the year after. And then through 2011, I was like, 'Will I regret it? Will I regret it to not try to defend my medal? I think it's a great challenge".[22]

At the 2013 World Championships Bilodeau placed second behind the upcoming Kingsbury who won his first World Championship.[23] Bilodeau then went on to compete in the dual moguls final. There he would go up against a familiar foe in teammate Kingsbury, he would defeat him there in the final and achieving his third consecutive title as World Champion in dual moguls.[24]

Much of the World Cup season building to the Olympics saw Bilodeau seesawing with teammate Kingsbury, with the younger skier getting the better of Bilodeau on top of the podium more often as the duo repeatedly placed one-two. This battle continued at the 2014 Winter Olympics where Bilodeau managed to beat out his counterpart after Kingsbury made a few slight errors in his final run. Yet once again the two men placed first and second and with the win Bilodeau became the first freestyle skiing gold medallist to defend his Olympic title, and first repeat gold medallist.[25] He became the first Canadian to defend their Olympic gold since Catriona Le May Doan repeated her gold medal performance at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics in Utah.[26] Le May Doan had been the first Canadian to repeat gold, Bilodeau became the second to do so, and the first male.[27]

On March 21, 2014, Bilodeau announced he would retire after the 2013–14 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup season.[1][28]

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