Changes are being made to the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park slopestyle course where Torstein Horgmo broke his collarbone - and ultimately scuttled his 2014 Olympic dreams - but that’s of little solace to the Norwegian snowboarder. Don’t expect the 26-year-old to gripe about it, though.
Instead of blaming a course that also bedeviled Shaun White into jamming his wrist, Horgmo told Reuters that the training injury comes down to a mistake he made.
“What I did, and what I hurt myself on was completely my fault,” Horgmo said. “I can’t blame the course for my injury. It was my decision to try a hard trick on a hard feature so sometimes that’s just what happens.”
He’s doing his best to stay positive about it, noting that he has “a lot of other super-fun cool things to look forward to” as the season goes forward beyond Sochi.
“I’ve just got to hit the reset button right now and think some things over, heal up and ride some powder and kind of refocus,” Horgmo said.
With his gold in Big Air at the 2013 Winter X Games in mind, Horgmo had the potential to be a contender in slopestyle’s Olympic debut. Instead, he’ll need to set his sights on other events.
For a sky-high gallery of slopestyle training, click here.