Max Parrot won gold in the snowboard slopestyle event – just three years after being diagnosed with cancer
Canadian snowboarder Max Parrot won gold in the snowboard Slopestyle event in Beijing on Monday – just three years after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Parrot was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma towards the end of 2018, but after undergoing 12 rounds of chemotherapy, announced he was cancer-free in July 2019.
After finishing 10th in the qualifying rounds on Sunday, the 27-year-old made his mark in the final with an excellent set of runs, including a score of 90.96 in his second-run.
It was enough for Parrot to take the gold ahead of 17-year-old Su Yiming of China whilst fellow countryman Mark McMorris won the bronze medal.
Following his sensational comeback after his cancer diagnosis, Parrot said it felt “amazing” to be back and on the Olympic podium.
“It feels amazing,” he told the BBC.
“So much went by in those last four years. The last time I was at the Olympics, in Pyeongchang, I got a silver medal, and then I had to go through cancer. It was a nightmare – it’s so hard to describe what I’ve been through.
“You have no cardio, you have no energy, you have no muscles. To be back out here, at the Olympics, on a podium again but with a gold medal, it feels amazing.
I laid down the best run of my entire life. I’m so proud of every feature, how I was able to clear them, and I’m really stoked with my score.”
The Canadian’s medal wasn’t without some controversy however after the judging of his second-run came under fire as judges failed to spot a moment where Parrot missed a board grab.
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