Winter Olympics 2026: Mac Forehand explains why he wasn’t robbed of gold after landing the jump of his life — ‘I wish I could do tricks like that’

LIVIGNO, Italy – It was the biggest of big airs. And with the way multiple competitors were landing some of the biggest tricks ever attempted in the history of freestyle skiing, it felt like it could have been anybody’s gold medal.

That’s how close the competition was Tuesday night at Livigno Snow Park for the men’s freeski big air.

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Stomped runs. Massive spins. One haymaker after another. A trick that has literally never been done by anyone in the world on the third and final attempt.

And it didn’t even win.

Mac Forehand, the 24-year old from Vermont, was the one who landed it — and had to settle for the silver medal by the slimmest of margins as Norway’s Tormod Frostad came in right behind him with a trick that scored just a tick higher to give him the gold medal.

On social media, the result was controversial because Forehand’s final trick — a nose butter takeoff into three flips and six full rotations — was so outrageous that it would have demolished the field on any other night.

But the same could be said for Frostad’s tricks.

And when it was over, Forehand immediately shut down any notion of complaining or second-guessing of how the final run was judged.

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“I’ve seen it so many times before: I got robbed, someone I beat got robbed — rob this, rob that,” he said. “But we know so much about our sport. We know what scores well, what should do well. The guys that are out here tonight know what the podium is going to be at all times. People on the outside perspective might not really understand that, but that’s just how it’s going to be. And, you know, judged sports — like I’m sure in figure skating — it’s the same way. But what do they really know about our sport?”

Here’s one thing everyone should be able to agree on: The level of skiing Tuesday was so high, particularly among the top six of the 12-person final, that there was practically no separation between the top two, bronze medalist Matej Svancer and the next two Americans, Troy Podmilsak and Konnor Ralph, who finished fourth and fifth.

In big air, scores of the best two tricks out of three attempts are added together. Among those five, the differences were miniscule — and it seemed like they all fed off each other as the competition went on.

“If one guys lands, I feel like everyone else is gonna land for whatever reason,” Podmilsak said. “That just happens. And people just get into these emotional things and it’s just ‘Bam, bam, bam’ — one after another and people can’t stop.”

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It was breathtaking to watch. It was probably almost impossible to judge.

“It’s like, how do you decide what’s harder when you’ve never done anything like that?” Ralph said. “It’s the worst job to be a judge. So I’m not mad at them. No one’s mad at them. But it could have been flip-flopped either way.”

In the end, though, it was going to come down to the top two. Forehand landed an impossible trick — one he hadn’t even practiced before. When he vaulted to first place — and deservedly so — it seemed like he might have the gold medal in the bag.

He wasn’t so sure.

“I knew I’d go into first,” he said. “But I knew Tormod had another trick in his bag that could score really high.”

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The outrage from Team USA partisans, such as it was, is easy to understand. In many big air events, it comes down to what the skiers call “spin to win.” The skier with the most rotations on a very hard trick usually gets the job done.

Frostad doesn’t rely on spins. Both of his tricks were just 4½ rotations, but his genius is in the difficulty and style of the takeoff.

Asked what makes Frostad’s tricks so good, Forehand broke it down this way:

“I do a nose butter. A nose butter is a 180 before you get off the jump. I do that and continue my momentum to cork [which is an off-axis flip]. He does the butter and then instead of continuing momentum, he goes against what his skis and what his body is doing and pushes against that. That’s why it’s so much harder to rotate off of that.”

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To put it in Italian terms, it’s like picking between Michelangelo and Da Vinci.

Maybe a different set of judges would have seen it differently. But two different kinds of tricks that were both brilliant and well-executed? It wasn’t nearly as controversial on the podium as it was on social media.

“Style is everything, in my opinion,” Frostad said. “Because that’s our only way to differentiate each other and to see style. It’s a trick you can learn, but you can’t really teach someone about style. That’s a whole process of finding yourself and going into different realms of using your inspiration to craft your style. And that’s why someone who spent a lot of time on their style, to me, is really impressive.  My take-offs are quite unique. The reason I came out on top is because I was doing stuff people didn’t think was possible. The judges seemed to really like it and I ended up on top.”

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The one thing nobody argued with? This was as good as big air has ever been. With that in mind, Forehand didn’t really care about the medal color he took home — he just wanted to win one.

“The level of skiing was off the charts today,” he said. “The way [Frostad] does it, the approach on takeoff is so unique and so different. I don’t think anyone’s ever done those two tricks before so it’s cool to see that and it’s good for our sport. We can only spin so much and it’s pushing the boundaries in a different way. I wish I could do tricks like that.”