"It was just, I mean, insane," Kyle Mack, 20, of West Bloomfield says after a second-place snowboarding finish at the Winter Olympics in South Korea. "To walk away with the silver today was just mind-blowing."
He clinched the silver medal by landing a trick called the "Bloody Dracula," something he hadn't even done in practice, writes Detroit Free Press sports columnist Jeff Seidel. It was Saturday in Korea when he won.
"All I wanted to do was go hug my parents and go hang out with them," Mack says. "It was just next level."
► See it: A three-minute video of the world-class run is here (after a 15-second ad).
Alyssa Roenigk of ESPN Magazine writes:
Before Saturday's snowboard big air final, Kyle Mack had never landed a frontside double cork 1440 with a double tail grab (also known as a bloody Dracula).
He had tried the trick a few times in practice and taken a couple of memorable slams. One year ago, at the Olympic big air test event, he landed a version of the trick for the first time in competition -- a frontside double cork 1080 bloody Dracula -- which he began adding to his snowboard slopestyle runs.
But Mack knew he needed to add another spin if he wanted a shot at being one of the first medalists in big air, an event that was debuting at the Pyeongchang Games.
"I was at the top [of the jump] contemplating whether I should do the bloody 14 or just do a tail grab," Mack said. "But bringing style into snowboarding is the thing I've always worked on. Big air has always been one of the most progressive events for snowboarding, but I wish it was more about style and grabs and the technical stuff. That's something I want to keep fighting for.
"Before I dropped in for my second run, I was like, I'm doing this for snowboarding."
