The difference between silver and gold in Olympic men's big air was a matter of who did a trick called a “nose butter” better.
The fact anyone can do it at all was only one of the amazing things to come out of a contest that will be long remembered by anyone who saw it.
Tormod Frostad of Norway edged out Mac Forehand of the United States by 2.25 points in Tuesday's final with the scores approaching the maximum of 200 points each. Frostad did so by nailing the nose butter — but with a physics-defying twist of his own — on all three of his jumps of a snowy freeskiing nail-biter on the big hill Tuesday night.
The 24-year-old Forehand's reaction after such a narrow loss?
“I'm happy to walk away alive from that event,” he said. “It was super heavy, people are going crazy and this is a really dangerous sport. I’m just happy to ski away and be OK, and (to do so) with the silver medal is pretty cool as well.”
Frostad had the lead through most of the 12-man final after nailing two massive jumps. But Forehand flipped a thrilling competition on its head when he moved ahead of Frostad on the second-to-last jump of the night.
That turned what had been looking like a victory lap for Frostad into the most pressure-filled leap of his career.
But the 23-year-old Norwegian pulled out another flawlessly executed effort to secure his first gold medal in his second Games.
Frostad finished with 195.50 points to Forehand’s 193.25.
His key to facing the moment? Not really caring what happened next.
“Yeah, I didn’t really didn’t care because I was already super happy and I could ski the last run with joy in my body and just deliver a fun trick,” Frostad said.
While Forehand performed incredibly difficult tricks that focused on spins and flips, including a last one he had never landed and only recently “joked about,” Frostad did something more: He took the sport in a new direction. Literally.
Instead of vaulting off the jump that's built to send skiers hurtling backward, Frostad defied physics and spun forward off that ramp.
One of those tricks was something nobody had seen before on a big air jump. That, in essence, is the core concept of these sports — “progression,” the drive for each generation, each skier to develop a new twist, a new turn, a new something to take the sport that much further.
“That’s the hard part about my trick,” Frostad said. “And to get into that axis is really, you got to be super precise, and the judges are aware of that, and that’s why they scored me great.”
Great? They ate it up and gave him scores of 95.25, 97 and then a gold-clinching 98.50 on his last jump when it was all down to him or Forehand for the gold.
Sensing he was part of a history-making night, American Konnor Ralph tried a triple-cork 2160 — that's six full spins — for the first time ever. He landed it and finished fifth, one spot behind teammate Troy Podmilsak in what was the best overall performance by the U.S. in the snowpark events (freeskiing and snowboarding) at these Olympics.
“Even though I knew I needed a 115 to win, I figured, 'Whatever, you've got to go for it, it's the Olympics,'” Ralph said.
But this night wasn't just about spinning the most.
“Tormod today was doing two tricks that have ever been done before and it’s less rotations but the takeoffs are so proper and so cool and different and he’s totally deserved that win,” Forehand said. “It’s not all about the rotations in our sport, it’s about the style, the creativity.”
Birk Ruud, the 2022 gold medalist who finished eighth after two crashes, agreed that Frostad had won because he had done the unexpected.
“Torm had those aces with the ‘butter double bio,’” Ruud said.
“No matter what tricks would come” after that, nobody could better Frostad, Ruud said. “So that means the progression is not just in the spinning.”
Frostad and Forehand both said that they would have been happy with any color of medal after participated in what they agreed was a final for the ages — one frosted by a steady snow that did nothing to slow down the 12 finalists.
“I mean, shoutout to everyone. They killed it,” Frostad said. “We all did amazing and even though the conditions were quite challenging, it ended up being like probably one of the greatest events ever.”
