LIVIGNO, Italy – All’s well that ends well. Indeed, snowboarding’s Red Gerard is still alive in his pursuit of a second Olympic gold medal in the men’s slopestyle.
But as for the ordeal he’d just endured? ‘It was awful,’ he said.
Out of 12 riders to advance out of the 30-man qualifying field on Feb. 15 at Livigno Snow Park, Gerard finished 11th. Despite two relatively clean runs without an obvious stumble, his high score on the second (70.00) put him squarely on the bubble with more than 20 riders to go after him.
Two of those riders – Mons Rosland of Norway (69.63) and Eli Bouchard of Canada (69.51) – received scores just shy of 70. Others got close, too.
Yet Gerard, just barely, held a strong enough position to qualify for the Olympic men’s slopestyle finals Feb. 18.
‘Slopestyle is in this point right now where there’s 30 riders in here, and all 30 of those riders can win the contest,’ Gerard said. ‘It’s just such a heavy game. So you’re sitting there just nervous as all heck.’
Of the 12 finalists, three were Americans. Jake Canter posted a score of 70.53 early in the competition and had it hold up until the end. He finished 10th, just ahead of Gerard.
Meanwhile, Ollie Martin (78.30), the 17-year-old who just missed a medal in the big air competition earlier in these Games, placed a solid sixth in slopestyle qualifying.
‘It was definitely good motivation to keep doing better and hopefully get on this podium,” Martin said. ‘… I definitely like slopestyle more. It just feels safer. You’re able to have a run going. It’s more creative. You’re about to show your personality more with the course.”
Event organizers moved up the men’s and women’s slopestyle qualifications a day for fears of poor weather on Feb. 16, which caused an adjustment in plans for the competitors.
Canter’s girlfriend had just arrived, he said, and was ‘cruising around town just thinking I had another practice’ day when he got a text informing him otherwise.
‘It was a gift and a curse,” he said. ‘I didn’t have enough time to really think about it or overthink. But at the same time, didn’t prepare the way I wanted to.”
Gerard said he didn’t find out about the change until about 6 p.m. the night before.
‘We had ideas (of a schedule change) after practice at 2,” Gerard said, ‘but they did do a good job. They told us weather was coming in, and I think they made the right call. I don’t know. From my weather forecast, it looks like the next two, three days are going to be pretty hairy.’
Gerard won gold in slopestyle in Pyeongchang in 2018 and has been critical of the format that lumps together competitors in big air and slopestyle.
After this latest qualifying in Livigno, he bristled a bit about the slopestyle judging and said he’ll be going back to look at his run as well as others in preparation for the final.
‘Definitely re-look at probably the top section of the course, the rails,’ he said, “and try to probably go look at other peoples’ runs on what they liked and stuff. Just kind of do a little bit more homework.”