Thought I'd get the ball rolling in the Winter Olympics. One of the first events on the schedule is the snowboard slopestyle competition, with qualifiers tomorrow morning, and the final on Saturday. For those who don't know, the idea is to
grind a few rails at the top of the run, before
hucking oneself over three enormous jumps. The winner is the rider with the most technical tricks delivered with the most style (or
steez). I won't bore you with talk of switch backside
and so on. Suffice to say that the trick du jour is the triple cork, and that the winner will have to perform at least one ... if not two.
With Shaun White pulling out of slopestyle to concentrate on winning the halfpipe, and Torstein Horgmo having broken his collarbone in practice, this has become essentially a two-horse race between Maxence Parrot and Mark McMorris ... two Canadians who took gold and silver at the recent X-Games in Aspen.
All of the bookies have these two installed as the favourites, but some are more generous than others. It would seem that McMorris is top of the pile by the slightest of margins. This is interesting, as he is still carrying an injury from the X-Games where he fell on a rail and broke his rib. In his own words:
“Battling through the pain yesterday was kind of frustrating and then I came up here today and it was just better — way better. I was able to jump and start doing tricks again. My confidence level is back up and I feel like I’m in a good place for breaking my rib 10 days ago. Two days out before a non-elimination round, I couldn’t be in a happier place. It’s still broken, it’s going to be painful and I know I’m going to have to ride through pain. But just to get a shot at trying to do what I want to do is the important part.”
Sounds very non-committal/suspect to me. Add to this the fact that Parrot won the gold by doing the first back-to-back triple corks in competition, and I think that most of the bookies have this one the wrong way around. As Maxence so succinctly/confidently put it:
“It’s a good feeling. I know I’ve got a good run that could put me on the top. I’d just like to see if someone can beat that run.”
Recommend
£20 at PP @ 4/1 Maxence Parrot to win snowboard slopestyle.
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