Saskatchewan’s Mark McMorris brought home Canada’s first Olympic medal, a bronze in the slope style competition. This is pretty amazing considering he broke a rib only a couple weeks ago at the Winter X Games (not to mention that he’s a kid from the flat Canadian prairie of course!) 😉
McMorris grew up in Regina. The closest thing he had to mountains were a couple of valleys. The biggest local hill was 89 metres (292 feet). But he started skateboarding when he was four years old, and he fell in love with snowboarding because he family took yearly trips to Lake Louise, Alta. He became obsessed with it. He became a huge star. He became one of the first three Olympic medalists in the sport. “I’m on an Olympic podium,” he said, “and I’m from Saskatchewan.” – via Yahoo! Sports
No less than the New York Times has a great feature that provides an inside look at what he’s doing when he performs all those amazing flips and spins.
As is probably common in our sparsely populated province, I have my own “one degree of separation” Mark McMorris connection. One of his best friends got married to a girl from my hometown whose mom nursed with my mom. My parents were at the wedding where Mark was one of the groomsmen.
So, uhm, maybe two degrees of separation? 😉 Anyhow, pretty cool stuff.
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