I’M NEVER BOARD
Thrill-seeking GB snowboarder Billy says it can be great fun off the piste..but it’s snow joke on it at times
BILLY MORGAN enjoyed every second of his Olympic debut four years ago – and he’s determined to do so again.
For some people the pressure of being Team GB’s first medal contender would keep them up at night but 28-year-old snowboarder Morgan (right) is not some people.
It’s more than five years since he became an internet sensation when he landed the first Triple Backside Rodeo 1260, a dizzying succession of spins and flips that defy gravity.
It established the acrobatturned-snowboarder as one of his sport’s biggest names, an unconventional risk-taker who lives by the mantra of ‘go hard or go home’.
“We can have some pretty wild parties I suppose, we like to have fun,” said Morgan, who will look to reach Sunday’s slopestyle final in the early hours of tomorrow morning, having won two bronze medals in last year’s World Cup.
“At the last Olympics I had a toilet seat around my neck at one point in the middle of the dance floor – the Games had finished though.
“Considering what we do, most snowboarders are pretty quiet, I’m actually really shy.
“I like competing against my friends. Of course you want to win but I’m really pleased for them if I don’t. I think it’s better not to make expectations of what something should be like and just get here and work it out. “If I’d chained these Olympics in my mind, I wouldn’t enjoy it and I wouldn’t perform. It’s scary to put yourself under that much pressure. I need the fun stuff in my life or it’s way too intense.” Morgan made the final as top qualifier four years ago but went for a massive trick and finished 10th after crashing on both runs. The underside of his board was emblazoned with the words ‘I’m having more fun than you’ – which certainly looked the case in a sport famed for its apres-ski. But he admits he considered quitting the sport two years ago after one crash too many. “I think some people don’t get ‘the fear’ but I get it more now than before,” added Morgan. “Just being a bit older I get ‘the fear’ a bit more. “When you are attempting a really big trick, you just worry about it all the time. “Sometimes I find it hard to get to sleep because I am just fretting about stuff.”
Watch Billy Morgan compete on Eurosport 1 tomorrow from 1am. Don’t miss a moment of the Olympic Winter Games on Eurosport and Eurosport Player. Go to
www.Eurosport.co.uk