‘It’s unbelievable’: Silverthorne snowboarder Jake Canter reflects on defying odds to secure Olympic bronze in slopestyle
Special to the Summit Daily
Isami Kiyooka/U.S. Ski and Snowboard
The initial burst of excitement of a snowboard slopestyle run well ridden and, most importantly, landed had come and gone for Summit County rider Jake Canter.
He stood waiting, interminably it seemed, for his score.
“I’m scared,” he said, staring deep into NBC’s camera as his face beamed to millions of fans around the world.
His score came soon enough, but the anxiety would linger because suddenly he wasn’t waiting to see if his best run would get him into the top three — it did, into third. He was waiting to see if it’d deliver on a dream, an Olympic medal.
Canter had to wait for nearly half an hour, had to watch nine of the best snowboarders in the world come down after him, and only then could he truly celebrate.
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When the time finally ran out, the competitors finally all down, Canter had what he’d come for: a medal, bronze in snowboard slopestyle at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
He led the U.S. contingent on the final day of snowboarding at the Olympics, placing third behind gold medalist Yiming Su, of China, and Japan’s Taiga Hasegawa, who took silver. Red Gerard, of Silverthorne, placed sixth and Vail rider Ollie Martin was ninth.
Canter, who’s lived and trained in Summit County, is a decade removed from a training accident that nearly took his life and left him deaf in his right ear. Not only did the Olympics seem out of reach at that point, but snowboarding did.
“It makes it all worth it. It’s unbelievable,” Canter said in a U.S. Ski Team news release. “I really just hope I made 13-year-old me lying in that hospital bed proud. This is for him and everyone that’s supported me, for my parents who have supported me through everything, even when so many doctors told me I’d never ski again. So to be here at the Olympics on the biggest stage is unbelievable.”
It took all the spinning Canter had to make it possible.
He landed his first run of the day, capped by a backside 1800 off the course’s bottom jump, but the score wasn’t enough to have him in medal contention. He needed a little more, and, after crashing out on his second attempt, he found that little more on his third and final run. He twisted his way to an extra half spin, five and a half rotations, 1980 degrees, off that bottom air.
That made the difference. He knew right away it was promising. He yanked his goggles to his neck and screamed into the crowd, overwhelmed in the moment before the waiting game began.
For Gerard, the hopes of adding a second slopestyle gold to the one he won at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, ended on his last run on the second of the course’s three big jumps. He landed a 1620 off the top air and spun for an 1800 off the bottom. He couldn’t stick the landing, however.
Canter’s medal was a highlight for the United States in what was otherwise a disappointing Olympics in snowboarding. The Americans earned just two medals in the discipline, with Chloe Kim’s surprising slide from gold to silver accounting for the other. The two medals set the U.S. in 10th in the medal count in snowboarding, the first time since 1998, snowboarding’s first year in the Olympics, that the United States didn’t lead in that metric.
This story is from SummitDaily.com.
