McMorris apologizes to Parrot in spat over Olympic slopestyle gold

BEIJING (AP) — Slopestyle gold medalist Max Parrot said fellow Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris has apologized for saying Parrot only won because of questionable Olympic judging.

Parrot acknowledged to The Associated Press on Saturday that he failed to fully execute a grab on the first jump of the slopestyle course and said he was lucky the judges didn't see it. He maintains he still had the best run of the day and earned his first Olympic gold.

McMorris finished third, 2.43 points behind Parrot, close enough that he would have taken silver if the judges had dinged Parrot for the missed grab. McMorris told CBC on Friday he deserved to beat Parrot and Chinese silver medalist Su Yiming.

“Obviously would have been nice to have a different shade of medal. But knowing that I kind of had the run of the day and one of the best rounds of my life and the whole industry knows what happened — pretty, pretty crazy,” McMorris said.

Parrot said there were no hard feelings over McMorris' comments.

“He actually came to me earlier today and he apologized for his non-sportsmanship," Parrot said. “I told him no worries.”

McMorris declined to be interviewed Saturday.

Parrot and McMorris are set for another showdown Monday, when qualifying begins for big air. The event will be scored by the same nine-judge panel that was immediately criticized at Genting Snow Park on Monday after broadcast replays clearly showed Parrot grabbing his knee instead of his board.

The lead official on the panel told snowboarding website Whitelines that the judges weren’t provided with replays or shots of some of the angles that were showing up on social media after the contest.

Parrot said the judging process needs an adjustment. He advocated for judges to have