USA TODAY International Edition
With style, Mack airs it out
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – Kyle Mack committed to his trick the night before the Olympic big air competition.
He stuck with that after failing to land it in practice before the final Saturday, committed to bringing his style to the contest. With the favorites expected to throw bigger tricks, part of it was strategy. Part of it was about showing what Mack values in snowboarding.
So for the first time in his life, the 20year-old landed the trick with a gnarly name — frontside double cork 1440 bloody Dracula — and loads of style.
It got him Olympic silver in big air’s debut in the Games at Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre. Mack earned a combined score of 168.75 on two jumps, finishing behind Canadian Sebastien Toutant, who scored 174.25. Britain’s Billy Morgan took bronze with a two-jump score of 168.00.
“The whole reason I wanted to do it was for snowboarding, and bringing style into snowboarding is the main thing I’ve always worked on,” Mack said. “And so I was at the top, always contemplating whether I should do bloody or just tail (grab). I was like, I’m doing it for snowboarding and just did the bloody Dracula and it worked out.”
First, Mack had to land his first trick. He did a backside triple cork 1440, which is three off-axis flips (that’s the corks) and four rotations (the 1440).
That set him up to try a trick no one had done before, the frontside double cork 1440 bloody Dracula. It’s two offaxis flips, four rotations and a grab that makes it stand out.
Mack reached both hands behind his back to grab the tail of his board, spinning like a top in midair.
“It was so sick what Kyle was doing,” said U.S. teammate Red Gerard, the slopestyle gold medalist who finished fifth in his weaker event.
“It’s a pretty wild trick,” Mack said. “It’s probably one of the hardest grabs in snowboarding, so to actually pull it off and grab it was insane.”
Nowhere is the tension between style and progression more apparent in snowboarding than it is in big air. Since it’s only one jump, riders can try their biggest tricks, adding another flip or another spin or both.
Mack has landed a double cork 1080 bloody Dracula, but in practice he tried it three or four times and couldn’t get the grab with the additional rotation. He landed it for the first time in the competition. “To land it in the second run was mind blowing. It blew me away more than anything,” he said. “After I rode away going down the landing, I was like, wow, I did it.”
Coming into the competition, Canadians Max Parrot and Mark McMorris were expected to win another medal after taking silver and bronze, respectively, in slopestyle. McMorris, a six-time X Games big air gold medalist, tried a switch backside triple cork 1620, a trick he landed easily in qualifying, but couldn’t put it down on his first two jumps. Parrot, who has seven X Games medals in big air and who has never finished lower than second in that event, landed a triple cork 1620 on his first jump but fell on the last two going for a triple cork 1800, which is five full rotations with three off-axis flips.
Toutant, instead, was the Canadian atop the podium after landing triple cork 1620s in two different directions. It was his first Olympic medal and came after he missed the start of the season with a compressed disk in his lower back. He didn’t practice or compete until the X Games late last month.
Mack recognizes that the difficult tricks are necessary. He himself attempted for the first time, but didn’t land, a triple cork 1620 on his last jump. But if that’s where snowboarding is going, Mack wants style to come with it. On Saturday, he ensured it did.
“That’s something I gotta keep competing and keep fighting for the ways that I want it to go,” he said. “It kind of paid off today. If you didn’t see, I got second with some stylish tricks. I’m really stoked about that and see where it progresses from there.”