Doubts Linger But Lots To Celebrate After Captain Clutch Brings Home Slopestyle Bronze

It feels like it's been a hell of a long week leading up to last night's slopestyle finals at the Sochi olympics, even though it's actually only the first day of the olympics! For those who follow snowboarding closely though, there was lots to keep us busy all week as the endless pre-event shit-talking finally gave way to actual snowboarding with qualifiers on Thursday leading to semis and then the finals late last night.

With two Canadians – Max Parrot and Sebastien Toutant – already in the finals, it was literally all eyeballs on gold-medal favourite (before he broke his rib ten days ago at least!) Mark McMorris who must have been dealing with the most pressure any athlete – action-sports or otherwise – could have found himself under. After an incredible few years that saw Mark come from an unknown prairie-kid out of – of all places – Regina, Saskatchewan, through his landing the first triple-cork both out of and then in competition, two or three X-games gold medals, a meteoric rise through the snowboard industry that eventually ended with pretty much everyone from fellow shreds, to Jake Burton, to the sporting world's elite deciding that he was in fact Canada's most likely gold-medal winner – that's in action-sports and not still – going into these olympics. From there, as quick as you could say "McLovin", it must have just been a flurry of media interviews and filming pre-packaged mini-docs for airing on CBC and far and wide. Even for a fierce competitor like Mark, who is known for coming through when the heat is on, it must have been extremely hard to keep all that out of his head and focus on the task at hand. Then it all came crashing down when a fall at the X-Games less than two weeks ago ended with a broken rib and the snowboard world held it's collective breath while we waited to see if Mark would even be able to compete, let alone stand on top of the podium. Think about that for a second – and this might strike a bit harder for the older readers out there who will clearly remember a time when literally no one outside our insular little world even knew what a snowboard was, never mind a triple-cork – a 20-year old snowboarder from Samskatchewan was the most talked about athlete in a country of 30-million for the past three weeks. Driving around town listening to the hosts on the CBC yammer away about Mark … about snowboarding … and about slopestyle for the past two weeks was perhaps one of the most surreal moments I've experienced. I'm not even sure exactly how I feel about it all yet but one thing is for certain, snowboarding has come a very long way and if we had to pick an ambassador to represent us on the world stage Mark is as good a pick as we could hope for.

Big smiles and flawless runs is what Mark is most known for but this week things seemed to take a shift for the worse early on. With seemingly inconsistent judging many were left making excuses for Mark's inability to secure himself a spot in the finals earlier this week but at the end of the day, even McMorris had to admit all the pressure might have gotten the best of him. It seemed to be the same story during semi-finals, with Mark failing to land his last jump on his first run, leaving him with one final chance to put down a run that would secure him one of only four remaining berths in the finals between the 20+ competitors. But sure enough he did it, landing an incredible run that did indeed get him into the finals, set for just two hours later that same day. Now it was really go time.

For those just being introduced to snowboard slopestyle for the first time – ie. 99% of the people watching last night – you might be forgiven to think that all this double and triple cork madness, as well as spins like 1260s, 1440s and even 1620s, are normal and have been going down for years. In fact the truth is quite different. Up until just a few years ago, any spin over 900 was considered huge, a double cork was a mythical dragon only seen once or twice a year the world over and the idea of a triple-cork was laughable. Then all of a sudden things started to progress insanely rapidly – perhaps due to slopestyle being announced as an olympic sport? – and a year or two later we are left watching our screens in awe, barely able to distinguish or name what tricks are going down in front of us. This, of course, has caused a ton of dissent and shit-talking in the snowboard world, with some claiming all this progression is a great thing and many others instead posturing that we are headed down a slippery slope to becoming the nexts aerials skiing – something that no doubt takes a ton of skill but at the same time looks dumb, everyone laughs at and is not relatable to real life in the least. Add to that what many are calling super inconsistent judging and the table was set for these finals to be really interesting no matter what was going to happen.

Canada was actually the only country to even have three riders in the final and as the first of two heats progressed, each of those riders proceeded to throw down extremely strong-looking runs but did not land on their final jumps, putting them at the bottom of the pack. Now, I personally was extremely happy and proud to see these guys literally "go for gold" and not hold anything back – if you're not first, you're last … right? – but at the same time it was SO hard to watch, with my heart beating fast and my mouth unusually silent. Fuck the olympics. Fuck the IOC, the FIS and all the rest. But goddamn this was as exciting a snowboard comp as I've ever seen. And it was happening in front of the entire world. The stage was set for something either extremely great or extremely anti-climactic to go down and we had no other choice but to sit back and watch. After a few between-heat hoots of course 😉

So there he was, after all the trial and tribulations that it took to get there, standing on top of the course, ready to drop in with one last chance to show everyone they weren't wrong to count on him. And drop in he did, dialing back his jibs just a touch in order to focus clearly on the three massive jumps ahead. Throwing down a triple-cork, followed by a double and then incredibly another triple. Landing them all clean as could be and coming down to the bottom of the course with a look on his face that said it all. The final outcome was out of his hands now but he had – finally, and with great struggle – done what he had set out to do … what everyone, including no doubt most importantly himself, had expected him to do. The relief was palpable and as a fellow snowboarder I can say that I've never been so relieved for, and even somehow proud of, someone I don't actually know before. To deal with that kind of situation, faltering on the way but seemingly never giving up the strength, the steely determination and the confidence that it takes to persevere, that is the true mark of a champion and hopefully the story, and lesson, that will be told. Keep your focus, concentrate on the positive and work through the negative. Don't be afraid of failure and missteps, for every great story in history is filled with them. That is the way the top, no matter what mountain you are climbing. 

Mark looking relieved after it was all said and done

Oh yeah, he ended up winning bronze – but that doesn't really matter, now does it?

After it was all over, Mark had this to say to the CBC: "The feeling is indescribably. I've been through a roller-coaster the past few weeks. Just getting onto my board was a huge first step. Making it through to finals was a huge step. Now standing on the podium, I've never been so close to crying over snowboarding. I'm so happy and so blessed to be where I am. Thank you Canada, really." Well said Mark, well said.

Check out all the Canadians' runs and the the final stats HERE