Olympic sports roundup: Max Parrot makes X Games history
Catch up on what you may have missed over the weekend
It was a jam-packed weekend of high-performance sport around the world, including a historic X Games performance by Canada's Max Parrot, gold for speed skater Ted-Jan Bloemen, as well as a pair of Australians ending Canadian moguls dominance in Calgary.
Here's a look at what you may have missed.
Parrot leads Canadian X Games charge
Canada's Max Parrot was up to the challenge at the Winter X Games on Friday, soaring to the top of the podium with a trick that had never before been landed in competition: a quad underflip.
Canadian teammate Mark McMorris took bronze in the event. He explains why he also attempted the quad flip:
Canada also scored two medals in the debut of snow bikecross — a racing competition involving modified dirt bikes which feature a ski in place of the front wheel and a snowmobile track instead of a rear wheel.
Brock Hoyer of Williams Lake, B.C., won gold in the inaugural event with a time of 14 minutes and 15 seconds while fellow Canadian Cody Matechuk was 23 seconds behind and took bronze.
Canada also took home a pair of bronze medals: Noah Bowman in men's ski superpipe and Alex Beaulieu-Marchand in the men's ski slopestyle.
The X Games also marked the return to action for Canadian freestyle skier Kaya Turski. However, she finished just off the podium in the big air event before crashing during training ahead of the slopestyle final:
On the weekend's final day, Tyler Nicholson of North Bay, Ont., won his first X Games medal — a silver in the men's snowboard slopestyle event — and McMorris rounded out the podium again.
Brett Turcotte of Kamloops, B.C., added more silver in the snowmobile best trick, while Josh Penner of Letellier, Man., earned bronze.
Bloemen golden in Berlin
Canada's Ted-Jan Bloemen won the gold medal in the 5,000-metre race on Saturday at an ISU World Cup long track speedskating stop in Berlin.
Bloemen holds the world record in the 10,000 distance, but Saturday's gold was his first career World Cup win in the 5,000.
"It's always hard if you are not skating the way you want to skate, it messes with your confidence," Bloemen said. "This gold medal win is really great going into the world single distance championships. The second half of the season is the perfect time to get a boost of confidence like this. That definitely is important."
McRae wins bronze at luge worlds
Canada's Kimberley McRae will be bringing home a bronze medal from the luge world championships in Innsbruck, Austria, joining teammate Alex Gough as the only two Canadians to reach the singles podium at a luge world championships.
"That is pretty cool and quite an honour. I'm honestly speechless," McRae said. "I took a huge step forward this year. I think this shows all of the work we put in training this year is paying off. It really is amazing."
Aussies end Canadian moguls dominance
Mikael Kingsbury's run of consecutive moguls gold in Calgary ended at six as the Canadian finished second to Australia's Matt Graham in the men's event on Saturday.
"He's a machine," Graham said of Kingsbury. "He's a really good athlete and a really good friend of mine, so it's nice to kind of take it to him every once in a while and let everyone know he's only human."
It was another Australian denying Canadian gold in the women's event. Montreal sisters Justine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe were second and third, respectively, behind Britteny Cox, who claimed her third victory in four events to start this season.
The sisters told Kelly Vanderbeek what it's like to share a podium result with each other:
With files from The Canadian Press