KRASNAYA POLYANA, RUSSIA - Canada’s Mark McMorris found himself in unfamiliar territory in Sochi on Thursday afternoon.
The 20-year-old from Saskatchewan is famous for being the first person to throw a triple cork — three off-axis flips while spinning four times — in a slopestyle competition. Heading into the Games, he was one of Canada’s best hopes for a gold medal.
He stomped a triple on the final jump at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park — despite breaking a rib just two weeks ago — and yet was scored so low he now has to fight through the semi-finals to try and earn a spot in Saturday’s Olympic debut of slopestyle.
“It’s kind of like a shock,” said McMorris. “I’m happy with the way I rode but the judges weren’t.”
He says his injury didn’t affect his run and it won’t hold him back from stepping it up in the semis to make sure he’s top four there to make it to the 12-man final, he said.
“It’s still broken so there’s pain but nothing that I can’t manage,” he said. “I’m hurting mentally more than anything right now.”
Canadian teammate Max Parrot riding high on his recent X Games gold continued his streak and qualified in first place for the final. Sebastien Toutant qualified third, going straight to the final, and Charles Reid has another chance to make it through the semis.
The last two days have shown the Olympic debut of slopestyle snowboarding is full of high drama – just what the IOC wanted -- on and off the slopes.
On Wednesday, Parrot and Toutant surprised many when they took to Twitter annoyed that American snowboarding legend Shaun White pulled out of the event citing fear of injury before his primary halfpipe event where he’s trying to defend back-to-back Olympic golds.
Parrot called him “scared” and Toutant said “it’s easy to find excuses to pull out of a contest when you think you can’t win.”
That two young Canadians would take on a snowboarding legend surprised many. But this is just a more public airing – there are thousands of journalists in Sochi after all – of a long simmering issue within the snowboarding community.
White may be snowboarding’s household name for the general public but it’s Canadians McMorris, Parrot and Toutant, and a handful of Europeans who have pushed the newer slopestyle discipline to where it is today.
Toutant brought in double corks. Then, a year ago, McMorris transformed the sport to the point that a rider without a triple shouldn’t bother dropping in. And, just last month at X Games, Parrot went a step further when he stomped back-to-back triples for the first time ever.
Between them, they have the last four Aspen X Games medals, the most prestigious event in slopestyle before the Olympics came along.
There is some resentment that White, who had stepped away from the slopestyle for years to focus on halfpipe, thought he could drop back in and nab the first Olympic gold medal.
But, the real issue at the core of their tweets, they explained Thursday, is disappointment. They want to beat White, fair and square, on the biggest stage in the world.
“It’s been blue sky everyday, no wind, I don’t see why you would not compete. It’s perfect,” Toutant said.
“Even if I get the gold, which I don’t know that I’m going to get,” Parrot said, “but if I get it people will maybe say Shaun White could have beat you.”
Parrot, a confident 19-year-old who borrowed money from his parents to launch his pro career, said he knows that he has the skills to beat White.
“But the whole world doesn’t know that and that’s why I wanted to prove that here.”
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