Canada’s McMorris takes nasty fall and is stretchered off in pre-Olympic snowboard training
LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Canada’s three-time Olympic bronze-medal snowboarder Mark McMorris crashed Wednesday night during big air training for the Milan Cortina Games and had to be taken off the course on a stretcher.
The 32-year-old McMorris, a stalwart of Canadian snowboarding who is making his fourth appearance at the Olympics, was getting ready for Thursday night’s qualifying, set for about 24 hours before the opening ceremony.
The Canadian team said McMorris had suffered a “heavy crash” and that it would provide more information as it became available. Officials from the team did not respond to emails from The Associated Press asking about McMorris’ condition.
In big air, riders do four, five or more spins after taking off from a ramp that in Livigno is more than 50 meters (165 feet) tall and built on scaffolding.
On his landing, McMorris spun out awkwardly and his head or neck appeared to hit the ground. He was motionless for about a minute while the medical team rushed out but was conscious as he was being placed on the stretcher.
Though others — Max Parrot and Sebastien Toutant — have won Olympic gold medals and McMorris has not, he might be the best-known member on the successful Canadian snowboard team. He has a record 22 X Games medals, 12 of them gold. Eight of those have come in slopestyle and the other four in big air.
This is hardly McMorris’ first brush with a bad crash.
He suffered life-threatening injuries after slamming into a tree during a backcountry ride in 2017. He has had a rod placed in his leg, a plate in his arm and another in his jaw as the result of that and numerous other injuries over the years.
Last month, he told the AP that he was in good health heading into the first Olympics in his 30s.
“I’ve been feeling pretty good, staying strong and putting quite a bit of effort in the gym to build a robust frame,” he said, “because what we do can be a little tricky at times on the body.”
___ AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics