LIVIGNO, Italy — With a clenched face and a hand waving toward a group of fans chanting his name, Ollie Martin, the shy 17-year-old snowboarder from Colorado, walked right past a handful of American media members Saturday night without offering a comment on his fourth-place finish.
The explanation from U.S. Ski and Snowboard? Martin hates talking to reporters.
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But there was another element at play. Moments earlier, Martin lost out on the bronze medal when China’s Su Yiming, the defending Olympic gold medalist, was awarded enough points on his final run to pass Martin for third place despite landing with two hands on the ground. Japan’s Kira Kimura took first place and his countryman Kimata Ryoma finished second.
While Su attempted arguably the most audacious trick of the competition in an attempt to repeat as the gold-medal winner, Olympic judges typically penalize lack of execution. In the suspenseful minute before Su’s score was announced, it looked like Martin might end up on the podium. Instead, when the score flashed, Su received 80.25 points — enough to leapfrog the American teenager and push him off the podium.
Heartbreak.
“I won’t say anything about that,” Martin’s mother, Anne, responded when asked by Yahoo Sports if she was surprised at Su’s score.
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Maybe she didn’t need to. Message received.
But if the Martins were upset, they weren’t showing it as their son made his way through the media zone before he found a group of family members for pictures and hugs.
“I have an incredible amount of faith in Ollie,” Anne Martin said. “It was harder to get here to the Olympics. It’s like a celebration once you’re here.”
After all, this was merely the first of what will likely be several Olympics for young Ollie. And after failing to land his first run in Saturday’s final, he responded with two strong tricks including the frontside double 1800 with a mute grab that vaulted him from 10th place to second briefly.
In big air, competitors get three tries and are scored on their best two, making for a tense finish as the riders go off in reverse order from 10th place to first for the final run. Everyone knows where they stand and what they need to do. With that kind of pressure, the format usually leads to either brilliance or big mistakes.
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And Martin, needing to do something special to even get into medal contention, executed like a veteran. It was even more impressive in retrospect when his mother revealed that Ollie broke his right arm just two weeks ago training for the X Games.
“He’s had that front 18 since he was 15 years old,” Anne Martin said.
Then it was just a waiting game. As one rider after another failed to pass him, the Martins thought the dream of winning a medal might have a chance of coming true.
“I was surprised he was still there for so long,” she said.
But he was — until Su passed him.
Was it a fair outcome? That’s hard to say. A sport like big air is imbued with subjectivity. If Su had landed his final trick cleanly, he almost certainly wins the gold medal. But that little wobble on the landing, necessitating a stabilizing hand to keep him from falling?
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It’s questionable, at best. The judges rewarded Su for the attempt more than they penalized him for the landing — and they could have penalized him a lot more.
Maybe it was an Olympic champion and global superstar getting the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe it was simply a panel of judges that respected the attempt enough to put Su on the podium.
We’ll never know for sure. But the American contingent, including the media, all had the same question: Was Martin robbed?
He wasn’t going to answer that. But his silence spoke volumes.
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