Bromont native wins silver in slopestyle snowboarding
Acalculated simplification of his plan on his final run brought Bromont’s Max Parrot to a stomping success and landed him with a silver medal in the slopestyle snowboarding competition at the South Korea Winter Olympics Sunday with 1.16 points behind Redmond Gerard of the United States and nudged his teammate down to a bronze medal with only .6 points between.
Wind direction and velocity were major elements that affected the outcomes of many of the athletes during the competition that features rail riding and aerial acrobatics. Observing that Gerard had performed less difficult manoeuvres with such success, Parrot decided to scale back on the difficult ones as well. “I saw Red landing his run,” Parrot said in an interview with NBC. “He didn't have two triples. It was just clean from top to bottom and that was just what the judges wanted to see.”
Representing Canada in a sport that is widely known by X-game fans and not so much in the mainstream world of sports, Parrot shared the podium with his “frenemy,” the invincible Mark Mcmorris of Regina who landed a bronze. It was Parrot’s third run that bumped Mcmorris down to a bronze medal even though Parrot’s first two runs had been badly compromised by a fall in each. Parrot admitted in a CBC interview on Sunday that after falling in his first two runs of three he was very nervous, very stressed. “I almost fell on my head twice. I did my best. The wind made for an additional challenge.” The best ranking from three runs played into the positioning of each of the athletes. Mcmorris’ fall on the third run gave way for Parrot to redeem himself.
According to Parrot’s profile, the
self-taught “shredder” was so determined to participate in snowboarding that at the age of 9, after his parents told him that he could not have a snowboard, the defiant young lad initially screwed running shoes to a skateboard. From there he created his own business plan to finance the cost of his first snowboard by mowing people’s lawns. Parrot said that by the time he had reached 15 years old, he announced to his parents that he wanted to become a professional snowboarder. “My parents were not very happy about this, but they did support me.”
Mcmorris’ return to the international stage after surviving a life-threatening injury only 11 months earlier has everyone in awe of his determination and strength. Favoured as podium winners next week on February 20 and 23 the Canadian rivals and teammates will be competing in big air’s debut to the Olympics. Both men admit that being at the Olympics is bigger than the X-games, because, Parrot says, “Here we see the whole world and the whole world sees us.”