LIVIGNO – An emotional Mark McMorris exited the Milan Cortina Olympics on his shield Wednesday, falling on his third and final run in snowboard slopestyle in a bid to reach the medal podium for the fourth straight games.
The 32-year-old from Regina, who won bronze in Sochi, Pyeongchang and Beijing, finished eighth in the field of 12 after going down hard, taking yet more damage at a competition that took its toll.
“I’m feeling pretty beaten up. Mentally and physically,” McMorris said in a brief exchange with reporters. “But I’m proud of my efforts. I’m really, really, really proud to make it to a fourth Olympics. I know I haven’t left any stone unturned. I worked my ass off to be here. I had the tricks to do so, but like in sports, it doesn’t always go your way.
“For my career, 90 per cent of the events — the big events — have always gone my way. This not being one of them is really tough to swallow … At the end of the day, I’m just super-thankful to be in one piece.”
McMorris thanked everyone for their support during his 16-year career, but said he plans to keep going.
“I’m having more fun than ever. I don’t plan to stop any time soon,” he added.
But asked if he would go for a fifth Olympics, McMorris said, “I don’t know yet” and walked away.
McMorris was the oldest — by three years — in Wednesday’s field and one of only three riders not born this century. He was also the lone male slopestyle athlete who competed in Sochi in 2014, which marked the discipline’s Olympic debut.
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Yiming Su, this season’s slopestyle World Cup leader, won gold — China’s first of the games — thanks to a first run of 82.41 that went unchallenged. Su won bronze in big air on Feb. 7, adding to his big air gold and slopestyle silver from four years ago in Beijing.
Su, who turned 22 Wednesday, was 13 when McMorris made his Olympic debut.
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Japan’s Taiga Hasegawa hung on to second for silver with a first-run effort of 82.13, with American Jake Canter claiming bronze with his third-run score of 79.36.
Canadian Cameron Spalding finished 10th at 75.13.
McMorris missed the Milan Cortina big air competition after a crash in training left him with a concussion, pelvic bone bruising and strained abdominal muscles. The Feb. 4 accident left him unconscious for two minutes and saw him stretchered off the course for a hospital checkup before returning to the Canadian team accommodations later that night.
“The guy’s a warrior to be just competing today,” said Brendan Matthews, Canada Snowboard’s vice-president of business development and partnerships. “And to have a legit shot at actually winning or being on the podium, he was right there. He had a run going until he went down.
“I feel for him, but I think everybody’s incredibly proud of him.”
McMorris has taken a beating in the sport.
At Sochi in 2014, he won bronze two weeks after breaking a rib at the Winter X Games in Aspen.
In February 2016, he broke his right femur on a crash landing at a big air event in Los Angeles and was sidelined for eight months.
In March 2017, he sustained multiple injuries in a back-country snowboarding accident, including fractures to his jaw, left arm, pelvis and ribs as well as a ruptured spleen and collapsed left lung, meaning he would have to make yet another comeback.
A legend and innovator in the sport, McMorris became in 2011 the first snowboarder to land a backside triple cork 1440. At the 2017 U.S. Open, he won slopestyle gold after unveiling a switch backside triple cork 1620.
He has won the most Winter X Games medals with 25 (12 gold, 10 silver and three bronze).
The 650-metre slopestyle course at Livigno Snow Park, which featured a vertical drop of 165 metres, features rail and jumps with riders judged on the breadth, originality, and quality of their tricks.
Fifty per cent of the marks come from the rails.
Spalding, a 20-year-old from Havelock, Ont., who earned the Crystal Globe as the overall FIS World Cup slopestyle champion in 2024-25, fell on his final jump in the first round, receiving a mark of 41.66. McMorris completed his first run, but only scored 75.50.
Su led after the first run, with McMorris sixth and Spalding 10th.
Spalding’s second run was clean, earning a 75.13 to move into seventh place after two runs. But McMorris fell on the second jump of his second run, receiving a score of 27.56 to remain sixth.
Spalding flubbed the top trail on his third run for a score of 37.30 before McMorris crashed, with both men falling down the standings.
Eli Bouchard and Francis Jobin, both from Lac-Beauport, Que., failed to make the final.
Canada came to Milan Cortina with six medals in slopestyle (one gold, two silver and McMorris’ three bronze) from the three previous Olympics that staged the event.
Canadian men had won five of the nine Olympic slopestyle medals (one gold, one silver, and three bronze) awarded before the Milan Cortina Games.
Four years ago, McMorris shared the podium with fellow Canadian Max Parrot, who won gold. They also shared the podium in 2018 at Pyeongchang, where Parrot won silver.
The men’s final was followed by the women’s slopestyle final, which was postponed on Tuesday due to poor weather conditions.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2026.
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