Brendan Mackay celebrates his final run.Patrick Smith/Getty Images
Canada’s Brendan Mackay of Calgary took bronze in the men’s halfpipe competition in Livigno after posting a surprisingly outstanding final run in the three-run medal round.
Until the very end, he did not seem destined for the podium – far from it.
The first of his three final runs was highly flawed and the second, at best, mediocre. But the quirk of halfpipe judging is that only the top score counts, not the average of the three, and his was high enough to nudge him onto the podium.
Mackay, 28, went into the finals looking like a medal winner in the making.
In the qualification round in the morning, he had a sensational run. He came out ranked first, with a score of 92.75 (out of 100), among 25 competitors. The judges were impressed by his double cork 1620 aerial manoeuvre, which was executed perfectly. “It is a trick I’ve been working on for a long time,” he said. “It was my first time landing it in competition, so I was happy to put that down.”
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Then he lost momentum. In the first of the three final runs in the afternoon, it was his Calgary colleague, Andrew Longino, 23, who came out on top; Mackay seemed doomed, with a score of only 37.5.
The second run in the final was not kind to either MacKay or Longino. At that point, neither of them looked like podium contenders. Longino made no improvements over his earlier runs and finished seventh overall.
Mackay did not seem destined for the podium until his surprisingly strong final run.Abbie Parr/The Associated Press
But Mackay managed to pull himself together and bury his first two runs. He pumped his fists in the air at the end of third run, knowing that he was back in the game. His score was 91.
Gold went to Alex Ferreira of Colorado, whose winning margin over the silver winner, Estonia’s Henry Sildaru was a mere 0.75 points. Mackay finished only two points behind Sildaru.
The third Canadian, Dylan Marineau, 27, also of Calgary, ended up at the bottom of the pack.
Halfpipe is an audience-friendly sport that made its debut as a snowboard event in the 1998 Nagano Games. Its introduction was designed to attract young fans. Ski halfpipe joined the Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
For the next decade, American halfpipers, among them Kelly Clark, Shaun White and David Wise, dominated the sport. Recently, the grip of the Americans on the halfpipe podium has begun to loosen. British, Canadian, Estonian and New Zealander athletes have been moving up the ranks.
Mackay’s bronze was the first Olympic medal of his career. He won the halfpipe World Cup in 2023 in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Mackay's bronze is his first Olympic medal.JEFF PACHOUD/AFP/Getty Images
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