Mark McMorris and his "Golden Piers". He is Su Yiming's idol, and his competition video has guided Su Yiming to step on the white snow again and again to pursue the dream of a teenager. He is Mark McMorris, a Canadian snowboarding legend.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, although Mark McMorris made a mistake in the snowboard jumping event on the 15th, he still won the bronze medal in the slope obstacle course.
Mark McMurris appeared on the Shougang Ski Jump. When he first became a professional player 12 years ago, Mark was called a "genius teenager". He overtook the "king of snowboarding" Sean White in the World Series results early on, and the only thing missing from his glorious resume was a Winter Olympic gold medal. However, compared to his achievements in the Winter Olympics, fate played a bigger joke with him - just when he was in the limelight, a fatal injury left him in the ICU hanging on the line.
But it took Mark only 11 months to get back on the field again.
"I was lucky that the serious injury made me realize that snowboarding is the love of my life and I will definitely stick to it." In an exclusive interview with the surging reporter, Mark talked about the legend of his nirvana rebirth.
"Medals are not my only goal, I want to have fun skiing and inspire others on this consistent journey."
For a long time, at the Men's Veneer Slope Obstacle Course World Series, as long as mark McMorris's name was there, he must have been one of the biggest hits in this race.
As long as Mark appears, the host of the scene will introduce him with titles such as "King" and "First Man".
So the question is, how strong is 28-year-old Mark?
Such a set of data speaks for itself – winning the X Game 21 times in his 12-year career, surpassing Sean White as the world champion with the most medals in history; 10 gold, 8 silver and 3 bronze medals; and the first player in the history of snowboarding slopes to score 98 points in the X Games.
Not only that, but he was also the first athlete in the history of snowboarding to complete a three-week backside triple Cork 1440.
In Mark's glorious resume, the only thing that is missing is that he has finished third in the final of the slope obstacle course in three consecutive Winter Olympics. And what affects his best performance is injury.
Handsome Mark McMorris. "At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, I played with a broken rib. Six or seven months before the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, 17 bones on my body had been broken. Mark told the surging news reporter that it is precisely because of the experience of the previous two Winter Olympics that his goal before coming to Beijing this time is very simple, that is, to stay healthy, "I hope to be able to participate in the Olympic Games in good health and health, and feel the Olympic atmosphere happily." According to local media reports in Canada, since he had also become an asymptomatic infected person with new crown pneumonia before, after recovering, Mark has been very careful, except for training and competition, he only stays in hotels in Canada.
In his own words, he relies on "room service to make ends meet," "I just want to stay as far away from injuries and viruses as possible in the month leading up to the Winter Olympics." ”
Under this careful protection of himself, Mark finally adjusted his state to a more desirable state than the previous two times before the start of his third Olympic tour.
On the second day of X Games in Aspen, USA, at the end of January, Mark won the 21st World Series medal that created history with three super difficult moves: a 1620-degree grab with a four-and-a-half-week tilt invert, an out-of-body italic flip three-turn around, and a three-week flip inward 1620-degree grab.
Reborn from a serious injury, the experience shines more than a medal
When talking about the Beijing Winter Olympics, Mark spoke of the word "health" more than once. In fact, in interviews with various media outlets before the Winter Olympics, Mark said the most about his health.
The reason for this is simple, he is a young man who once "fought death" because of snowboarding.
In his years as a professional snowboarder, Mark has experienced injuries large and small, including a rib fracture in the X Games before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and a ruptured thigh bone in 2016 at Boiling Snow Los Angeles. But the worst was the major accident that took place in 2017 when the ski movie was filmed.
At that time, he accidentally crashed into a tree while skiing, resulting in multiple fractures of his jaw, left arm, pelvis, ribs, ruptured spleen, and atrophy of lung tissue... To this day, as long as Mark McMorris's name is inserted in search engines, the photo of him lying unconscious in the ICU's hospital room, full of tubes, can be easily found.
"When the accident happened, I thought I would never be able to ski again, and I thought I was going to die." Mark once talked about the "darkest hour" in an interview with foreign media, "I am very lucky, I feel that all this is like a fairy tale. ”
Mark was full of tubes. Mark snatched his life back in the fight with "Death", but the recovery process was extremely painful - sitting pain, standing up more painful, even lying down to sleep is often awakened by nerve pain, "that treatment time is very painful, can not move, can not speak, every day is terrible." But Mark survived again, especially after the medical tubes were gradually removed , Mark told the surging news reporter, "During that time I exercised my brain, grateful for everything in life, and I also realized that mental recovery is an important part of physical recovery." I started paying attention to my breathing skills and then writing down the things I was grateful for and all the goals as well. ”
It was his simultaneous mental and physical recovery that allowed Mark to regain his place on the world championship podium just eight months after suffering such a horrific injury and return to the Olympics 11 months later.
"That injury made me even more aware that my favorite thing was snowboarding, and although there was some self-doubt during the recovery process, I finally realized that this was the love of my life and I would stick with it forever."
"After recovering from injury, I can still stand on the field and make my hardest moves, and I'm really happy."
As a contracted athlete for Red Bull Austria, Red Bull Austria also filmed a documentary called "Unbroken" for Mark, and the clips of him facing the existential crisis of "PUBG" in the documentary also touched many audiences.
"That injury was the biggest setback I've ever experienced in my life, and because of that, I realized I can never take anything for granted. ”
After experiencing such a change, Mark knows more about gratitude, "I am lucky to be who I am now, to be able to ski and live like this, and it was that accident that made me learn to be grateful for everything." ”
Mark told The Paper that if it weren't for his mother taking him and his brother to the mountains when he was young and letting them see snowboarding for the first time when they were clamoring to skateboard, they probably wouldn't have had a chance to get in touch with skiing.
"My mom was bold enough to allow us to go skiing and I really appreciated her. I don't know if she would have been able to be me like this now if she hadn't let me play veneer. Mark quipped that in addition to skateboarding, he used to be very fond of hockey at one point.
"But only when we're skiing can we have those funs. I always remember the smiling faces on our faces when we skied as children. ”
In addition to his own mother, McMorris's other grateful person was his brother Craig.
"Without my brother, I wouldn't be where I am today. When I was young, what he learned, I would learn. Mark recalls that at that time, there were no professional snowboarders in the place where they lived, "It was because my brother was always trying to improve that I was able to keep improving." It's wonderful to be a professional skateboarder with my brother. ”
This grateful attitude to life allows Mark to enjoy his snowboard career today and still insist on challenging his limits. More importantly, he hopes to inspire more young people who like sports with his stories and experiences.
Mark and his brother Craig now have an organization called the McMorris Foundation, which helps raise money to help young people who love sports but don't get the opportunity or difficult conditions. According to the foundation's official figures, they have raised $250,000 in pro bono funds over the past six years, helping more than 2,500 young Canadians get better opportunities to exercise.
"One in five children in Canada lives below the poverty line, and the number of people participating in organized sports is decreasing every year." In an open letter he wrote with his brother, Mark wrote:
"We know that sport can change lives, whether it's performance and self-esteem in school, or leadership, collaboration and communication in life, and we want to help more children feel the joy and power of sport, just like everything we experience."
Indeed, his light has already illuminated Su Yiming, and it will certainly give more courage to those who come after him.
(The Paper)