Max Parrot.Photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Max Parrot’s first-place victory at the2022 Winter Olympicsis extra sweet.
Parrot scored a 90.96, giving him the edge overSu Yimingfrom China, who nabbed the silver medal, and Parrot’s fellow CanadianMark McMorris, who took bronze.
Speaking toBBC Sportfollowing his win, Parrot said, “I laid down the best run of my entire life.”
“I’m so proud of every feature, how I was able to clear them, and I’m really stoked with my score,” the athlete added.
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Max Parrot.MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images
That win came ahead ofhis cancer diagnosis in Decemberof that year — and after completing 12 rounds of chemotherapy, Parrotannounced he was cancer-free in July 2019.
“You have no cardio, you have no energy, you have no muscles,” he continued. “To be back out here, at the Olympics, on a podium again but with a gold medal, it feels amazing.”
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Parrot, who is a spokesperson for theLeukemia and Lymphoma Societyof Canada, recently released a documentary film titledMAX —Life as a Gold Medal, which chronicles his journey.
“I had a camera filming me 24/7 for over eight months,” he toldOlympics.comahead of his appearance in Beijing. “It was a big mystery because we were filming every day, every week, every month, and we didn’t know when the end was going to be.”
“Once you’ve battled cancer,” Parrot added, “you have to gain back all of your muscles, all of your energy because chemo puts you really down at zero percent. So it was a big eight months for mebattling cancer andbattling myself to get back in shape.”
And he credits his teammates for helping him get to where he is today: “I would have never gone through all of that with all, all of my team surrounding me. That helped me so much. So I’m really grateful for that.”
To learn more about Team USA, visitTeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, now, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.
source: people.com
