Canada's Mark McMorris undergoes surgery for broken orbital bone, nose

Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris is sporting a look these days courtesy of taking his knee to his face.

The 30-year-old from Regina posted on Instagram earlier this week a video of himself spinning and twisting high above a snowy slope.

Upon landing, the video immediately cut to the snowboarder in a Revelstoke, B.C., hospital bed with a bruised eye swollen shut, crooked nose and facial cuts.

McMorris didn't quite stick the landing of a double backflip backside 180 with a nose grab. He drove his knee into his face and broke his orbital bone and his nose.

He thanked his goggles for absorbing some of the impact of his knee, saying, "because I'm not sure where my eye would be. Maybe in the back of my head."

McMorris underwent surgery Monday in Vancouver. On the brighter side, McMorris didn't sustain a serious concussion.

"When you break your orbital bone and your nose, you don't rule it out, but my symptoms on the concussion front are super-mild and I have full recollection of what went on," he said.

McMorris is a triple Olympic bronze medallist in slopestyle in 2014, 2018 and 2022. He holds the Winter X Games record for the most career medals with 23, including 11 gold. Six career gold medals in men's slopestyle is also a record.

He'd taken a step back from competition this season, although he claimed an X Games slopestyle silver medal in Aspen, Colo., in January.

McMorris was filming a Burton Red Bull film in the backcountry near Revelstoke after competing in last week's Natural Selection event.

"I took a bit too much speed at the jump," he said. "I went a little bit long. I didn't catch the transition where I probably should have and then kind of over rotated the trick I was trying, so it was a combination of things