ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Down the line of media the champion went, camera after camera, gaggle after gaggle, a fat grin on his face and a thin maple leaf flag draped over his shoulders. At each stop, with seemingly every answer, Max Parrot punctuated his words by spreading his arms and raising his palms and gesturing around the scene here at Genting Snow Park, as if to tell his audience, Look at all this. Can you believe it?
Well, can you? Three years ago, the Canadian slopestyle snowboarder was sprawled across a hospital bed in Granby, Que., one of a dozen chemotherapy treatments in six months’ time pumping into his ravaged body to fight his Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis. “I had no more muscles, no more energy, no more cardio,” Parrot, now 27, said. “I almost wanted to quit sometimes because it was getting too hard just to get to the next morning. And to be standing here winning gold, that is completely crazy.”
Jack Gruber/USA TODAY Sports
