Mark McMorris of Team Canada competes in run one of the Men's snowboard slopestyle qualification on day nine of the Milan Cortina Winter Games.David Ramos/Getty Images
Mark McMorris’s career as one of the world’s top snowboarders would have been over years ago – he is 32 – if his ability to recover from devastating injuries weren’t so astonishing. He’s the bionic freestyler.
The Regina-born three-time Olympic bronze medalist and holder of a record 22 X Games medals makes a regular habit of pushing his slopestyle and big air competitions to the limit – and beyond – and paying for his enthusiasm.
In 2016, he broke his femur attempting a frontside triple cork 1440 maneuver. It’s hard for mere mortals to understand the skill and courage required to perform the four-rotations stunt, but you can assume it’s highly dangerous. He was back in action five months later.
In 2017, while boarding in the backcountry near Whistler, B.C., he hit a tree at speed and nearly died from his injuries, which included a fractured jaw, left arm and pelvis, as well as several fractured ribs, a collapsed lung and a ruptured spleen. Fully repaired by 2018, he went on to win bronze in the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang.
McMorris, true to form, injured himself this year, but the timing could not have been worse. On a big air training run on Feb. 4, three days ahead of the opening of Milan Cortina Winter Games, he banged his head and pelvis hard and was removed from the course in a stretcher. At that point, it seemed he was would be an Olympics no-show.
The bone of his pelvis was grazed and he had a concussion – the latter being potentially more dangerous. But once again, he bounced back. The doctors gave him the green light to compete in the men’s slopestyle event in Livigno, one of the Italian Olympic towns. The final is on Feb. 18.
He’s sitting out the riskier big air contest.
On Friday, McMorris told reporters he was feeling great and ready to slide. “I feel like I made some good strides,” he said. “I am slowly building my confidence back up.”
When asked about the dangers of the sports and whether he gets scared, he admitted that he did. “I definitely get scared at times. It’s part of it,” he said.
He knows he’s not alone, that it’s all part of the job description – like it or leave it. “There isn’t one snowboarder out here who hasn’t taken a hard hit,” he said. “I feel like we’re a tough breed. Everyone has that warrior spirit in snowboarding and definitely has a lot of passion towards it, otherwise we wouldn’t be out here.”
McMorris is one year younger than another all-star Canadian freestyle champion, Mikaël Kingsbury, who has announced that Milan Cortina will be his last Olympics. Kingsbury won gold in the men’s dual moguls on Sunday, taking his four-Games medal count to five.
McMorris is also competing in his fourth Games but deflects questions about his will to keep going. Last month, when CBC Sports asked him about calling it quits, he said “I can’t give you that yet. I got to get through this one [Milan Cortina] and then I’ll let the water go under the bridge and see what’s up.”
One thing is for sure: If he decides to keep going, the next round of injuries won’t stop him.
Follow our live daily coverage of the Winter Games