Max Parrot wins Slope, day after Big Air gold

ByCOLIN BANE
January 25, 2014, 7:44 PM

— -- ASPEN, Colo. -- Canadian rider Max Parrot's X Games weekend began with a Snowboard Big Air win Friday night and ended with a Slopestyle win Saturday.

Parrot narrowly beat countryman and X Games Aspen 2012 and 2013 gold medalist Mark McMorris, who led after the second of three runs but crashed hard in the rail section in his third run and was unable to improve his second-place standing.

McMorris knocked the wind out of himself and was still being evaluated by X Games medical staff after the crash. He was able to ride down but said, "I'm sore. I just pray to God I'm OK and it's nothing serious. It's too bad. I must have lost train of thought of what I was doing. I wasn't in focus."

Norwegian rider Ståle Sandbech won bronze with a technical run in which he spun in every direction, both regular and switch.

Parrot got technical in the rail section, with a Cab 270 on the down rail, a hardway to backside 450 on the down-flat-down rail and a 270 on the up-flat-down rail, before going big in the jumps with a frontside double cork 1080, double cork backside rodeo, Cab triple underflip and backside triple cork 1440.

"In the jumps, pretty much all the riders have the same tricks, so everything comes down to who's going to step up the game on the rails," Parrot said. "That's why I tried the hardway backside 450 in. I've never done that trick before so I was really stoked today."