Mark McMorris

Bio

In order to be a successful snowboarder, you need to have grown up in the shadow of a snow-peaked mountain and have strapped on a board everyday since you could stand, right? Wrong. Mark McMorris grew up in Saskachewan, a flat and mountain-free region of Canada, and has only been competing professionally since 2009. However, at only 19, Mark is pretty much already a legend.

In 2010, Mark took 1st place at the FIS World Cup in Canada. The following year he took 2nd place at the Winter X Games and 1st place at the Billabong Air & Style competition in Austria. After being the first ever snowboarder to successfully land a backside 1440 triple cork, Mark was asked to join Travis Rice and appear in the iconic snowboarding movie The Art of Flight in 2011, getting the chance to immortalise the trick on film.

By 2012, Mark had become only the second person to ever win double gold at the Winter X Games (Big Air and Slopestyle) – the first being Shaun White in 2009. It came as no surprise to his fans when Mark took home the Transworld Rider’s Poll Rookie of the Year award that year.

That success kept on rolling in 2013: in the men's slopestyle final in Aspen, he scored a whopping 98 points and another gold. Mark also added an X Games silver medal in big air, silver in slopestyle at X Games Tignes, and a win at the Burton U.S. Open to his stash, as well as a first in the overall slopestyle rankings on the 2013 TTR World Snowboard Tour.

Now that Mark McMorris is one of Canada’s top Olympic hopefuls, we look forward to seeing what the next few years have in store for this pro.