Canada’s McMorris returns to slopes with big air gold after devastating crash

BEIJING – Regina’s Mark McMorris made his triumphant reutrn to the slopes on Saturday, winning gold in the men’s big air competition at the Beijing World Cup.

It was McMorris’s first competition since a harrowing accident in the backcountry near Whistler, B.C., eight months ago.

McMorris broke his jaw and left arm, ruptured his spleen, fractured his pelvis and ribs and suffered a collapsed left lung in March when he crashed into a tree.

But he showed no ill effects on Saturday, taking the top spot in his qualification heat with a score of 83.00. In the final, McMorris impressed the judges, performing a frontside triple cork 1440 mute and a backside triple cork 1440 indy to grab a combined score of 187.00.

New Zealand’s Tiarn Collins won silver and Norway’s Torgeir Bergrem was third.

McMorris’s victory shows that his prepartion for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, is on track after the accident in March. He won slopestyle bronze at the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

Narrowly missing out on a spot in the final, Brooke Voigt of Fort McMurray, Alta., was the top Canadian female finisher in eighth. Winnipeg’s Gillian Andrewshenko was 11th.