Saturday 8 February 2014

Mark McMorris wins bronze in slopestyle, Parrot and Toutant trip over their big yaps.

Two Québec boys, snowboarders Maxence Parrot and Sébastien Toutant talked trash about American mega-hero Shaun White before the slopestyle Olympic competition, but couldn't back up their big talk with action in the finals, finishing fifth and ninth respectively.  We'll be left to wonder whether the medal hopefuls psyched themselves out by taking on the American half-pipe champion publicly, in the Twitterverse, whether they added pressure onto themselves and lost focus.  I feared they might experience a backlash from the judges, but based on their runs there was no risk.  They didn't put themselves in a position where they could be robbed.

It was left to Mark McMorris, competing with a broken rib suffered at the X Games a couple weeks ago, to rescue the team with a gutsy bronze-medal performance.  Kudos for a great show of courage and perseverance.  And diligence and concentration, and focus on the task at hand, which is more that we can say for his teammates, who flubbed a great opportunity for themselves.

http://olympics.cbc.ca/news/article/mark-mcmorris-9th-after-1st-run-slopestyle-semifinal.html

No comments:

Post a Comment