READY TO COMPETE
Less than a year after a snowboard crash left him with injuries ranging from a broken jaw to a pelvic fracture, Mark McMorris is recovered and ready for the Pyeongchang Olympics. The 2014 bronze medallist has his eye on a gold medal this time.
As the Olympics draw closer, the Leader-Post and StarPhoenix are teaming up to profile each of Saskatchewan’s seven athletes. Today, we interview snowboarder Mark McMorris.
Craig McMorris can’t help himself.
He still gets emotional when talking about the near-fatal crash suffered by his younger brother Mark on March 25, 2017.
Mark suffered breaks to his jaw and left arm, a ruptured spleen, a stable pelvic fracture, rib fractures and a collapsed left lung after crashing into a tree off a snowboard jump in Whistler, B.C.
After the back-country jump, Mark had to be airlifted to Vancouver, where he underwent surgery to control bleeding and repair breaks to jaw and left arm.
That was last year. Mark is now preparing to take part in his second Winter Olympics, having recovered from a crash that left him with 17 broken bones. The 2018 Winter Olympics are to begin Friday in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“I’m extremely surprised that he’s competing,’’ Craig says. “It’s really hard to talk about and I try to avoid it because it was a very traumatic experience ...
“When Mark was clinging to life in the back-country and now to see him riding so strong, winning events and being named to the Canadian Olympic team …
“I don’t want to use the word ‘miracle,’ because he worked so hard and he got extremely lucky. As an older brother, broadcaster and best friend, it’s amazing to see him competing. After everything that he’s done, there isn’t any reason why he can’t go to the Olympics and win a gold medal.’’
The McMorris brothers hail from Regina and have been longtime elite snowboarders.
Mark, 24, has risen to the pinnacle of the sport with numerous world and X Games championships and a bronze medal in slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
He has reached those heights while battling injuries. He earned the bronze medal at the 2014 Winter Games just two weeks after breaking a rib while completing a trick.
He has also bounced back from a broken leg in 2016. None of the injuries were as serious as the ones he suffered in Whistler while filming a video.
“What happened on that day was like a car accident,’’ Craig says. “Ninety-nine per cent of the time, Mark will do what he did and be totally fine and not even think about it. There was a mental lapse and he went a little too far right and that happened to be a time when a big tree was there.’’
Mark was knocked out by the impact. He then waited 90 minutes for an air ambulance to make the trip to the accident site and then back to Vancouver.
Mark spent 10 days in hospital and continued working on his extensive rehabilitation after being discharged. He made a triumphant return to the slopes on Nov. 25 when he won the men’s big air competition at the Beijing World Cup.
“Some days it felt like I would return to snowboarding and other days it wouldn’t,” Mark McMorris told CBC. “I just feel really, really blessed to even have a chance to snowboard at this level again.”
Craig remembers talking to Mark after the accident and his brother telling him that he could move his legs despite the horrific injuries.
“He says that his legs were fine and that he could go to the Olympics,’’ Craig says. “He was obviously in shock, so I told him not to worry about that and ‘let’s get off this mountain.’
“Just those little signs that Mark was able to show what he could do were great. A couple of days later he was walking and a couple weeks later he was already doing physio.”
Mark is to compete in slopestyle and big air, the latter being a snowboarding event that makes its debut at the Winter Olympics. Considering all that he has gone through, just being at the Winter Olympics might be enough.
“He’s pretty laid-back, down-toearth and extremely humble, but he’s one of the most competitive people on Earth,’’ says Craig, who will be a co-host of CBC’s Winter Olympics Overnight.
“I bet not a day goes by that he doesn’t think he wants a gold medal or deserves one. That gold medal is definitely something that has eluded him and he wants it badly.’’
I bet not a day goes by that he doesn’t think he wants a gold medal or deserves one. That gold medal is definitely something that has eluded him and he wants it badly.