Canadian Olympians ride out highs and lows
Parrot soars to big air gold, McMorris expected better than bronze in slopestyle showdown, dream silver nice consolation for Sharpe
BUTTERMILK MOUNTAIN, COLO.— In the final matchup of the world’s best freestyle snowboarders before the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, things didn’t quite go according to script for Canada’s riders.
Superstar Mark McMorris — who has a near-mythic ability to return from catastrophic injury and lay down winning slopestyle runs when they matter most — struggled with the landing on the final jump of his final run and had to settle for the bronze medal here at the Aspen X Games.
Darcy Sharpe — who didn’t even make the cut for Canada’s Olympic team — was a step higher on the podium with the silver medal with Norway’s Marcus Kleveland taking the gold.
“Super frustrating,” McMorris said in summing up his final run, where he had hoped to move up the ranking. “Feels good to get on the podium, but frustrated because I was riding so good that last run and I had a winning run coming together . . . I just wish I could have landed that last jump, and it was the easiest trick in my run.”
That bronze medal, for an athlete with a drawer full of gold ones from past X Games, was made all the more frustrating by his fourth-place finish the night before in big air, the single-trick event that makes its Olympic debut next month. Regina’s McMorris, who earned a bronze in the Olympic debut of slopestyle at the 2014 Sochi Games, has his eye on trying to win two medals this time around. But that’s a goal shared by fellow Canadian Max Parrot, and he too had mixed results here.
He came out on top, winning the big air event Friday night.
“I’m very happy to back up my medal from last year,” Parrot said. “This is a really hard event and I love hard challenges.”
But the rider from Bromont, Que., didn’t manage to qualify for the slopestyle final.
“I was feeling good on the jumps, but I missed my rails on both (qualifying) runs. Really unfortunate because I wanted to compete.”
Among Canada’s other Olympic team riders, Tyler Nicholson was fifth in slopestyle and sixth in big air, while Sebastian Toutant didn’t qualify for the slopestyle final and pulled out of the big air event to protect his recently injured back.
That just left Sharpe to be completely thrilled with his performance.
“Pretty insane feeling to put a run like that together,” the 21-year-old from Comox, B.C., said. “My sister got third the other day, which really rocked me out, and I said: I got to get in there. I got to get some hardware,” he said.
Cassie Sharpe picked up bronze in halfpipe skiing on Thursday. Next month, she’ll be in South Korea representing Canada, but her brother will not after an injured ankle a year ago kept him from making the team. He’s fine now and riding better than ever, but it’s too late.
“I beat the whole Canadian Olympic field here, every single one of them. I think that’s pretty awesome to be able to come and do that, and show the people that the Olympics is not the best field of riders; it is the top four from each country,” Sharpe said.
“Canada is the best country in slopestyle, so we’ve got six guys that should be there and they’re only going to take four, and unfortunately because of an injury I missed threequarters of the qualifying events. That was really devastating, but I keep in mind when I was growing up, that this was my dream. This was my goal. Everything revolved around wanting to get to the X Games, and get X Games medals,” he said.
“So I can’t be bummed. I’m excited to see my peers go to Pyeongchang and hold it down. They’re all amazing snowboarders. It will be hard watching the event and thinking I could be there doing well, but that’s the way things go. Injuries never come at the right time, and this one came at the worst time. I’ve got four years to continue snowboarding and go to the next one.”
For McMorris, Parrot, Nicholson and Toutant, their Olympic future is just around the corner and they’ll carry this event’s experiences with them.
“I wish it would have went better,” McMorris said. “It’s a little more fuel to the fire.”
But McMorris still leaves here in a much better position than he did in 2014, when he broke a rib falling on a rail just weeks before his Olympic event in Sochi.
“No broken bones,” he said, smiling. “I’m looking forward to going over there and happy to be going healthy.” Norway’s Kleveland — who won gold in slopestyle and silver in big air and was the only athlete to land the rare, cutting-edge quadruple cork — couldn’t be heading into the Olympics on more of a high.
He said he’s feeling good about his riding, but always has his eye on the Canadians.
“They’re really good those guys. Their riding is insane,” he said.