McMorris puts crash behind him
Champion snowboarder says that he’s ‘just gotta stay healthy and keep riding’
It is not the first crash or broken bone and it may not be the last. But snowboarder Mark McMorris hopes it was the worst.
Because the 23-year-old phenom doesn’t want to go through anything like it ever again. The pain. The trauma. The mental struggle. The intense whole body physical rehab.
“Nobody should go through anything like that,” he said during a conference call on Tuesday.
While filming a video in the Whistler back country on March 25, McMorris lost control off a jump and slammed into a tree. He broke his pelvis, jaw, left arm and some ribs, ruptured his spleen and punctured a lung, and was knocked unconscious.
His brother Craig was with him and helped get Mark airlifted to hospital, where he recovered for 10 days. He posted an Instagram photo of himself in bed, looking every bit like death warmed over.
“I hit a tree in the whistler backcountry a week ago and to be honest I was pretty sure I was going to die,” he wrote.
He was broken and battered, top to bottom. It was so much different than his previous worst injury, a broken femur in 2016.
“Definitely after the femur
I was pretty upset and it’s like whatever, I got better. And I really appreciated snowboarding more and whatnot,” he said.
“But this injury makes you appreciate life. I went through a gnarly trauma. I think that the trauma can go one of two ways. It can definitely bring you down and make life more difficult for a long time. But the fact that I was given another opportunity, I can wake up every day and know that it can be so, so, so much worse.”
He’s back on his board now, focused only on riding and shooting video for the documentary. He was leaving for Australia on Tuesday and he’ll ride in Switzerland in October. He has targeted the Dew Tour stop in Breckenridge, Colo., in mid-December for a return to competition.
He knows that he needs more time on his board, but isn’t concerned that his competition will have gained any advantage while he was in rehab.
“Definitely not behind in the tricks department,” he said. “Just behind on the hours on snow.”
But that’s not uncommon, either. He said that injuries and commitments have kept him off the snow more than most other pro snowboarders in the past four years.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be healthy at the competition season, but it’s definitely been not a ton of time on snow. Spending a lot of time in the gym and rehab and flying around the world doing things for others.”
He feels no need to rush into competition any sooner, in part because his spot on Canada’s team for the PyeongChang Games has been secured already. He was pre-selected and if completely healthy, should be a medal threat in both the big air and slopestyle events. He won the bronze medal at the Sochi Olympics and a silver medal at the 2013 world championships in slopestyle.
“If I feel anything like I do now (at the Olympics), I’m very, very confident. Just gotta stay healthy and keep riding,” he said.
“I’ve got my spot on the Olympic team so I’m really stoked. I just need to ride and start feeling comfortable again.”
Most of his injuries have healed completely, but there is a lingering issue with his left arm. He shattered his humerus and recovery of that limb has taken longer than anything else. Mentally, he seems to be whole again.
“Rehab is 50 per cent mental and 50 per cent physical and as you physically progress, I think you mentally progress. Because, if you start to feel strong again, you’re like ‘oh I can snowboard.’ But when you’re laying there and you’re having a hard time doing daily activity, that’s when it’s hard mentally to even picture yourself back snowboarding.
“So now that I’m feeling that I can go snowboarding, the mental side isn’t really wearing on me anymore, which is really nice.”
He was asked about risktaking in the wake of such a traumatic crash. He didn’t seem fazed.
“I don’t feel that my mindset on risk-taking has really changed,” he said. “I just think I want to be careful and I want to appreciate every day that I get to snowboard.”