Snowboarding-Gold medal-winning knee grab controversy causes frustration

BEIJING : The men's snowboarding slopestyle final at the Beijing Olympics seemed to have a picture-perfect ending when Max Parrot took gold following a comeback from cancer.

Parrot, who completed his last round of chemotherapy treatments for Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019, came out in front of China's Su Yiming, who took silver, and fellow Canadian Mark McMorris in the bronze medal position.

However, as new video angles of the competition appeared, fans' attitudes shifted.

Those shots showed that during Parrot's winning run the Canadian grabbed his knee during a trick, not the board, and should have lost points for not completing a key component of the manoeuvre.

Supporters of Su and McMorris were outraged and berated the judges on social media and in private messages, according to media reports.

McMorris said it was a shame the knee grab was not caught earlier.

"Any other contest, if they would have seen it, that would have been a complete write-off of a run, like a 75-80," said McMorris, who was hoping for a different medal after also winning bronze in Sochi and Pyeongchang.

"The fact the angle the judges had just was not that easy to make out if he touched his board or not, and by the time they went to slo mo it became super apparent that he didn't grab and he grabbed his knees and no board purchase," said McMorris.

A media representative for Parrot did not reply to an email request for a comment on the situation.

Comments on McMorris' social media were a mixture of congratulations and anger about getting "robbed" by the judges.

On China's Weibo, Su's coach Yasuhiro Sato posted a message asking fans to refrain from criticizing the judges and that he and Su respect the flow of the game and the outcome.

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In an interview