Snowboarders take it on the chin and just about every other part of their body

LIVIGNO – Like the old Timex watch ad, snowboarders take a licking and keep on ticking.

Take Regina’s Mark McMorris, whose crash in big air training Feb. 4 at the Milan Cortina Olympics left him with a concussion, pelvic bone bruising and strained abdominal muscles. 

“But thankfully, nothing that nine days couldn’t fix,” he said cheerfully in a media availability Friday at Livigno Snow Park. “I’m feeling pretty darn good again. Slowly building my confidence again and having fun.”

McMorris was taken away on a stretcher and checked out in hospital before returning later that night to the Canadian team accommodations.

The 32-year-old McMorris, who won bronze medals in each of his three previous trips to the games, returned to action Sunday in impressive fashion, placing third in slopestyle qualifying. The men’s medals will be decided Wednesday.

He was given the green light to return to action Thursday.

“I’m so thankful there was a nice gap between events. I definitely needed it,” said McMorris.

“Doing all the concussion protocol and testing is very repetitive and rigorous, but you can’t be too careful with the head. So I’m glad we have such a good medical team here to help walk me through that and instil the confidence in me again by passing all those crazy heart rate tests and all these different things I had to do.”

From the halfpipe to the hills, snowboarders can go down hard.

“We definitely take some hits at times. It’s definitely a part of the sport,” said McMorris. “There’s not one snowboarder out here that hasn’t taken a hard hit. I feel like we’re a tough breed. I mean, everyone has that warrior spirit in snowboarding and definitely has a lot of passion towards it or else they wouldn’t be out here because, yes, you do take hits.”

Francis Jobin took his hit in his final training run before the Feb. 7 big air competition, suffering a dislocated shoulder. Amazingly, he still competed and finished seventh.

His shoulder popped out on the fall, then popped back in on its own, he said. But when the medical staff did some tests, it popped out again.

“That was like 10 minutes before my run. So I was kind of freaking out. But then we popped it back in,” Jobin recalled with a giggle. “We did a tape job, and I ran back up there.

“I was in quite a bit of pain, honestly, that day.”

Adding to the roller-coaster of emotions that day, Jobin fell on his first attempt in the final off the 55-metre jump but bounced back with two good jumps.

The 27-year-old from Lac-Beauport, Que., competed in slopestyle wearing a shoulder brace, shipped especially from Canada.

“I’m pretty surprised how good it was today,” he said Friday of his shoulder. “Honestly, I was pretty stressed all week, scared it was going to take a toll on my confidence, but after riding today, I’m really satisfied.”

“I’m feeling good. It’s my favourite event, slopestyle,” he added with a smile.

Subsequent tests revealed he would be competing with a torn labrum. And sadly, he fell on both qualifying runs Sunday, failing to advance after finishing 29th.

Of course, not all injuries can be shrugged off.

Elizabeth Hosking broke her shoulder blade on Thursday when she crashed in her final run of the women’s halfpipe final.

“I’ve been better for sure. But I’ve also been worse, with less physical damage,” she said the next day. “So not the outcome I was hoping for (Thursday) night, but looking forward to more snowboarding in the future.”

The 24-year-old from Longueuil, Que., who finished 11th in the field of 12, saw the glass half-full.

“Almost better a broken bone than anything else. Bones are very predictable in their healing,” she said.

Blouin is no stranger to injuries. After winning silver at the 2023 FIS World Championships, Canada’s first-ever world championship medal in the event, she missed the entire following season with a concussion.

McMorris’ medical history reads like a telephone book.

A broken rib at the 2014 Winter X Games in Aspen. A fractured femur at a 2016 big air event in Los Angeles.

In 2017, he was put in an induced coma after a backcountry snowboarding accident that left him with fractures to his jaw, left arm, pelvis and ribs as well as a ruptured spleen and collapsed left lung.

“I definitely had to build myself back up from some tough injuries and some adversity at times,” he said. “I wish it didn’t happen, but I can’t go back and I just try to move forward with positivity and trust my riding abilities. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Laurie Blouin, a three-time Olympian, overcame a hard crash in training to win silver in 2018 in Pyeongchang, collecting Canada’s first Olympic medal in women’s slopestyle snowboarding.

“I’ve never had any really gnarly injuries. That’s why we go to the gym,” the 29-year-old from Quebec City said with a laugh.

“I don’t really think about it. I just accept it,” she said of the sport’s injury risk. “Because if you always think about it, then you’re just going to get hurt. I know I can get hurt, but it’s not my worry.”

Slopestyle snowboarders like Blouin wear little protective equipment, other than a helmet and perhaps a mouthguard. Halfpipe competitors may wear hip and back protectors, while snowboard cross competitors may wear spine protection.

Cameron Spalding, who claimed the 2024-25 Crystal Globe as overall FIS World Cup champion for men’s slopestyle, says he has done “pretty well lately” when it comes to injuries.

“Knock on wood, of course,” added the 20-year-old from Havelock, Ont. “A couple of broken wrists, broken leg, strained some muscles here and there. It’s part of it. I mean, it’s always going to be there. You’re always going to take slams. You’ve just got to get back up and keep going.”

In the words of Monty Python’s Black Knight, “tis but a scratch … Just a flesh wound.”

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2026