Canada’s Sebastien Toutant nabbed the gold medal in the snowboarding big air competition at the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea on Saturday.
Toutant, 25, took home the gold with a best score of 174.25. Kyle Mack of the U.S. captured silver with a score of 168.75 and Great Britain’s Billy Morgan took the bronze with a final of 168.00
The 2018 Winter Games marked the debut of the snowboarding big air competition. Each rider gets three runs with the points from their top two combined for a total score. Jumps are judged based on difficulty and execution — including amplitude and landing.
Toutant had a rough go at the snowboard slopestyle event earlier at the Games, finishing dead last overall.
“I just love snowboarding so much and I’ve been through so much lately,” Toutant said after his gold-medal run. “To be here, come so close and do well in slopestyle and to actually take the win today in big air, at the first-ever big air at the Olympics, it’s awesome.”
Canada’s Max Parrot finished 9th overall with a score of 117.75, while Regina’s Mark McMorris finished 10th with a score of 72.50.
“I’ve always been saying, ‘If you’re not first, you’re last.’ I’m always trying my best to get on the podium,” Toutant said. “I had those two tricks in mind I wanted to do for big air. Landing those, I’m really happy. Didn’t matter which position I was going to get but to end up with gold is awesome.”
–with a file from The Canadian Press
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