MCMORRIS “IN GREAT SPIRITS”

REGINA (CP) – Olympic gold-medal favourite Mark McMorris of Regina is in “great spirits,” despite a fall that fractured a rib and nearly derailed his dream.

Don McMorris, the snowboarder’s father, says Mark is moving around quite well after the incident during Saturday’s slopestyle event at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo.

“When we left him (Sunday), he could bend over and touch his toes because of where (the injury) is at,” Don McMorris told The Canadian Press on Monday. “You know a cracked rib in the front, you couldn’t do that, but where it’s at (around the back), he could bend to his toes and could raise his knees up to kind of his chest.

“He was really doing better than we all thought. He’s got five or six days before he has to worry about riding and he’s got the best people around him.”

Mark McMorris caught his snowboard on the lip of a rail and went sliding down the bar on his right side before landing hard on the snow during the final. He stayed on the ground for a few minutes before riding down the hill under his own power.

A fractured rib usually takes six weeks to heal, so Mark McMorris won’t have time to fully recover before the Games start Feb. 7. But his father is cautiously optimistic.

“Yes, I’m optimistic, (I) have to be,” he said. “I mean maybe too optimistic because there’s going to be a lot of pain and … you don’t know how the body will react, but compared to what it could have been, we’re pretty happy.”