Max Parrot leads Canadian slopestyle sweep in Laax
Mark McMorris, Tyler Nicholson round out World Cup podium
Max Parrot brought back one of his signature moves to lead Canada to a podium sweep at a World Cup snowboarding competition Friday.
Parrot, of Bromont, Que., captured gold in the men's slopestyle event while Mark McMorris of Regina won silver and Tyler Nicholson of North Bay, Ont., took bronze. Seven Canadians made the 12-man final.
"It's really amazing to hop on the podium with your friends," Parrot said. "Canada is doing really well right now. We were seven Canadians out of 12 in the final, which is really crazy."
Parrot won his first slopestyle title of the season with a score of 91.58. With his teammates setting the bar high on their runs, he responded with a backside triple-cork 1,620 — a jump featuring four and a half rotations while flipping off-axis three times — to claim the gold medal.
Parrot unleashed the difficult jump to win the first of his two X Games big air titles in 2014, an impressive enough feat that Wired magazine broke down the physics of Parrot's jump in a 2015 issue.
He said he hadn't done the jump in a while, but he wanted something big on his final run Friday to put the gold medal out of reach.
"I think if you don't take any risks you won't hop on the podium," Parrot said. "From a technical point of view I try to put in a bit of a safety run first that would still put me on the podium, then go all in on my other runs to make sure I finish first."
McMorris, an Olympic bronze medallist, recorded 88.96 points while Nicholson had 85.51.
Max Eberhardt of North Bay (sixth), Michael Ciccarelli of Ancaster, Ont., (ninth), Montreal's Sebastien Toutant (11th) and Darcy Sharpe of Comox, B.C., (12th) were the other Canadians in the final. Toutant and Sharpe did not compete on Friday.
Bummed i couldn't ride the finals today cause of my concussion yesterday... stoked to ride <a href="https://twitter.com/XGames">@XGames</a> next week! 🙌🏽 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/snowboarding?src=hash">#snowboarding</a> <a href="https://t.co/x0omhNvkFB">pic.twitter.com/x0omhNvkFB</a>
—@SebTootsParrot said he's impressed by Canada's depth heading into the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
"We're one of the strongest teams in the world right now," he said. "We've never seen a country before with that many athletes in finals.
"I just thing our national team is doing a really great job ... We get really great support from them which helps us perform at our best."
In the women's event, Finland's Enni Rukajarvi took top prize, Austria's Anna Gasser was second, and American Jamie Anderson came in third.
The action in Laax continues on Saturday morning with the halfpipe competition, followed later that afternoon by snowboard cross from Solitude, Utah. Both events will be streamed on CBC Sports.
You can catch more slopestyle on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on Road to the Olympic Games, our weekly show spotlighting the best high-performance athletes from Canada and around the world. As well, additional snowboard cross coverage from Solitude will air on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on Road to the Olympic Games.