Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris earned a bronze medal in the men’s snowboard slopestyle at the 2018 Winter Olympics. That in itself shouldn’t come as a big surprise: The 24-year-old has four gold medals in slopestyle from the X Games in Aspen alone, earned a bronze medal in Sochi as well, and a year ago was ranked the No. 1 snowboarder in the world.
Mark McMorris nearly died 11 months ago. He just won a bronze medal in snowboarding.
McMorris earned a bronze medal for Canada in snowboard slopestyle less than a year after a horrific backcountry crash.
Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images
What makes it so incredible is this:
While doing some backcountry skiing in Whistler, British Columbia, McMorris hit a tree. Canadian broadcaster CBC reported McMorris suffered a “fractured jaw, fractured left arm, ruptured spleen, a stable pelvic fracture, rib fractures and a collapsed left lung.” It took more than an hour and a half for search and rescue to arrive.
“There was fog kind of coming in and out, and Mark, unfortunately, drifted a little bit too far left ... and ended up in a clump of trees,” [Canada snowboard spokesman Brendan Matthews] said.
“It’s a freak accident, you know, 99.9 per cent of the time he would have landed in the snow and rode away. This time, for whatever reason, just a couple of feet to the left and ends up in pretty much the worst-case scenario.”
“That (crash) was just gnarly.” — Mark McMorris
Last July, McMorris said his first thought after waking up from being out cold for 45 seconds was that he’d never be able to snowboard again. Speaking to CBC, he said:
“It was not a small tree and (it didn’t have) branches on it. I hit it all on my left side. I did a front-side 360 and as I turned around it was just like right there. And then it was just — boom. I broke everything, like 16 bones or something in one hit. That’s like a car crash.
“I didn’t think I’d ever snowboard again when I was laying there after I hit that tree,” he said. “I was awake and was waiting. As soon as the helicopter got there (90 minutes later) I went to sleep. I remember the whole time waiting, just trying to survive because (I) ruptured (my) spleen and all that and my jaw was just hanging. I was puking. I thought I was going to die — literally.”
McMorris isn’t really worried about injuries, or anything else. The near-death experience only heightened his understanding of the sport.
“Obviously, I love this sport more than anything,” he told the Toronto Star. “Nothing really brings me the same joy as snowboarding. If you’re given the opportunity to return to full health you might as well give it a go.”
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