Max Parrot Wins Gold in Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle

Canadian snowboarders Max Parrot and Mark McMorris earned Canada a gold and bronze medal in the men’s slopestyle on Sunday. Parrot has the distinction of winning Canada’s first medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, while McMorris earned the second.

It was only three years ago that Max Parrot had put away his snowboard and stopped competing while undergoing treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma. The significance of the win was not lost of Parrot as it came three years to the day of starting treatment in hopes of curing him of cancer.

“I had no more muscles, no more energy, no more cardio. I remember I was drawn by my treatments. I almost wanted to quit sometimes because it was getting so hard just to get to the next morning. To be standing here three years later and winning gold, that is completely crazy.”

Parrot, who is from Bromont, Quebec, won the gold medal with a second run score of 90.96. This was enough to beat China’s Su Yiming, who had the best time during qualifying, placed second, while Mark McMorris took bronze with a score of 88.83.

“I’m incredibly proud of myself on the run I did today, it was the hardest one I’ve ever done in my entire career. I was able to stay focused and to lay down every feature perfectly, which got me to 90 and got me the gold medal that I was missing in my career.”

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Sunday’s finish at the 2022 Beijing Olympics for Parrot and McMorris was the second time the two stood on the podium together during the Olympics. The first was during the 2018 Pyeongchang Games when Parrot won silver and McMorris, who had suffered a serious injury in the backwoods of B.C before the games, won bronze. McMorris, who had hoped to improve on his bronze medal win in Pyeongchang, said he is happy his teammate won gold and overcame his life-threatening cancer.

“He’s incredible. He can really nail some hard stuff. He’s definitely a great snowboarder. I’m super proud to share the podium with him and he’s been through a lot just like myself. I think it’s well deserved.”

During the training and practising sessions before the Snowboard Slopestyle event, Parrot was struggling and only placed ninth during the qualifying session. With Su being fastest during qualifying, he had the advantage going into the medal round runs. He also had the crowds cheering him on as the hometown hero.

However, during the morning session, Parrot changed tactics and came out strong. With a time of 79.86, Parrot found himself finishing the morning session in third. Parrot contributed the score to tightening up on his previous runs in hopes of improving his technical scores.

“I was definitely not going to do the same run as qualies. I really just wanted to go for a safe run to make the finals, which worked out. and I was going go big or go home today.”

After the second run, Su was in second place behind Parrot, and that put pressure on McMorris for his final run. The third run was McMorris’s best of the day, and to celebrate, he flipped his board, but his celebrations were premature as he fell 0.17 points shy of jumping into second.

“Definitely was anticipating a bit higher of a score, but sometimes when you finish a run, you don’t really recall some of the like maybe little bobbles you had or whatnot.”

Canada’s Sebastien Toutant, who finished ninth in the event, will join the Canadian Men’s snowboarding team at the Freestyle Ski Series Competition in Comox Valley, B.C. Toutant, who failed in his attempt at a new trick during his runs is hoping for a better showing at the Freestyle Ski Series Competition.

“We always go hard and we always try new stuff that is not easy. I have no regrets about it. No regrets. If I had a second shot at it I would probably do the same but hopefully land it.”