From a lion in a chemotherapy cage to the king of the slopestyle jungle, Max Parrot didn’t need an Olympic gold medal to love life.
“My goal is to go for the gold, that’s for sure,” the Canadian snowboarder said last month. “But I’m really happy as well that if I don’t get it, I won’t have any regrets.”
Parrot’s source of perspective is a painful one. A Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis and 12 treatments over six months, stripping bare an Olympian body, day by day.
Cancer took everything but left him something - a chance, that so many millions never get - to live the rest of his life in pure technicolour.
“I try to smile all day long now,” he said. “I don’t take anything for granted any more.
“I appreciate every day - from little things in the morning to my passion for snowboarding. It’s made me better.”
Parrot won silver at PyeongChang 2018 and a few weeks later missed the whole of 2018-19 due to chemotherapy. He won X Games gold two months after his last treatment.
He won Olympic gold thanks to a daring run that blended huge air with brilliance on rail sections.
His second jump was magnificent, taken at an angle, as he flipped 1440 degrees and stuck the landing to perfection. Parrot scored 90.96 points, the only man to break 90.
“By far, the biggest run of my entire career,” he said.
There was a ghost at the feast in the shape of a judging error. Parrot grabbed his leg rather than his board on a jump but the jury missed it and the customary penalty wasn’t given.
Views in the snowboarding world differed on the issue.
“I think had they picked it up it might have made a bit of difference to the score but in the end the rankings wouldn’t have been different,” said Team GB big air bronze medallist Billy Morgan.
BBC pundit Ed Leigh saw things differently, saying: “The judges have put execution at such a premium that something like that should have cost him two or three points.
“I spoke to one of the judges and they are distraught… this is a big one, a really big one.”
If it’s needed, Parrot has the chance to underscore his status as the best boarder in the world in the big air - which is actually his favoured event.
Team-mate Mark McMorris, who won bronze behind Parrot, summed it up.
“Max beat ******* cancer,” McMorris said, “and it’s pretty sick to see him do well.”
Watch All the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 live on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport app
