Bad boy Billy twizzles his way to glory
FOR years, British medals at the Winter Olympics were about as rare as snow in summer. When ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold in Sarajevo in 1984, they became household names and were the toast of the nation.
Now, with Great Britain enjoying its most successful Winter Games to date, the name Billy Morgan was yesterday added to our roll call of heroes.
The hard-partying former roofer from Southampton became the first British man to win an Olympic medal on snow – taking bronze in snowboarding’s ‘Big Air’ event.
As the name suggests, it involves a massive jump. In Morgan’s case, a jump he had never previously performed successfully in competition: a gravity-defying ‘front-side 1440 triple with mute and tail-grab’.
As he later explained: ‘That’s four times round and upside-down three times. So it’s lots of spinning and twizzling around and you have to grab your board while you do it.’
It took Great Britain’s medals tally in Pyeongchang to five – beating the four won in 1924 and 2014 – and follows a skeleton gold for Lizzy Yarnold as well as bronze medals for Dom
‘If there are Brits in a room with vodka it’ll end in tears’
Parsons, Laura Deas and freestyle skier Izzy Atkin. Yesterday, the women’s curling team missed out on bronze with defeat to Japan.
Morgan, 28, who has broken several bones in pursuit of his dream, was pictured at the end of the 2014 Olympics at an all-night party dancing on a table with a toilet seat over his head.
‘If there’s a bunch of Brits in a room with bottles of vodka on tables, it’s going to end in tears – and it did,’ he explained.
Hamish McKnight, British snowboarding’s head coach, said: ‘Billy shows that you don’t have to be a coldhearted machine to be an Olympic medallist.’
Yesterday, as he prepared another celebration, Morgan said: ‘I started snowboarding at the dry slope in Southampton and I went out on the snow when I was 17 and have pretty much been living in the mountains since. I will keep pushing it for as long as I can. I’ve hit a few bumps in the road but I’m not going to stop yet.’