Two weeks after losing consciousness in a violent collision during training, Canada’s Mark McMorris could have won his fourth medal in snowboarding slopestyle at the Olympics.
The 32-year-old will enter Wednesday’s final at Livigno Snow Park in third place, joining PyeongChang 2018 winner Redmond Gerrard (USA), Beijing 2022 silver medalist Su Yiming (Switzerland) and top qualifier Dane Menzies (New Zealand).
Menzies, who fell second on Feb. 15, scored a near-perfect 10 on the first rail and a backside lip slide of 270 for 9.80 points. He then connected on a big, clean jump line in the bottom half of the course, finishing with a switchbackside 1260 mute to a frontside 1440 tail grab and a backside 1620 melon for a total of 86.06 points. This is the highest score of the day.
“It definitely felt pretty good, I definitely wasn’t expecting anything like that,” said Menzies, who finished third in slopestyle at last month’s Snowmass event, his first podium at a World Cup. “I didn’t expect the judges to give me such a high score, but I’m glad they liked my choice of rail.”