kyle Mack won it by landing a bloody Dracula.
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The U. S. flag was draped around his shoulders and West Bloomfield’s Kyle Mack leaned his head back in total disbelief.
“It was just, I mean, insane,” Mack said after winning the silver medal in the debut of big air at the Winter Olympics. “To walk away with the silver today was just mind blowing.”
This Netflix binging 20-year-old clinched that medal by landing a trick called the bloody Dracula, something he couldn’t even do in practice.
All he did was crash in practice.
“Oh man, it was insane,” Kyle said. “All I wanted to do was go hug my parents and go hang out with them. It was just next level.”
Mack jumped over a plastic fence and found his parents, Connie and Tod Mack, in the standing area at the Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre.
“Oh my god, the tears coming off my dad’s eyes,” Kyle said. “It was hard for me to hold mine back. They are my biggest supporters. They have always been there for me.”
Mack took silver with a score of 168.75 points. Canadian Sebastien Toutant won the gold with 174.25 points, while Britain’s Billy Morgan took bronze 168.00.
“I can’t put that into words,” Tod Mack said, his voice cracking. “A lot of emotions. A lot of feelings. He’s worked real hard and I’m really proud of him. He talked about going to the Olympics when he was 10 or 12.”
This was a journey that started when Kyle was 3 years old. “The first time I was ever snowboarding was actually down my driveway at my house in Michigan,” he said. “My dad kind of shoveled off a path down the dock into the lake.”
From a driveway to the Olympics.
Insane.
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The night before the competition, Tod and Connie Mack took their son out to eat at a Korean barbecue restaurant. They went with several members of the Gerard family, including Olympic gold medalist Red Gerard.
They call it getting Gerarded — family, friendship and having a great time with food and drink.
The two families are extremely close.
“There were probably 12 of us,” Tod Mack said. “Kyle said, ‘I got this.’
“He had a lot of confidence going into today. We took them back at 8 o’clock and dropped them at the village. He went in and watched a little TV and went to bed, and, yeah, this is what happened today.”
Yeah, this is what happened — this amazing conclusion to the Olympics for Kyle Mack.
He had one of the most challenging schedules at these Games, competing at both ends, at the start and end. He failed to qualify for the finals in slopestyle and then had long wait until the end of the Games for big air.
“I watched so much Netflix in between,” Kyle said. “I swear I watched four different shows. I went and checked out some hockey games. I ventured around the coast. I got to hang out with my family. Then, it was grinding and getting back to work.”
When Connie and Tod Mack arrived at the venue on Saturday, they saw people holding signs that read: “Mack Attack.”
“It was so funny,” Connie Mack said. “When we first go there, Tod said, ‘Hey, the Gerards are here. They got the Mack Attack signs and Kyle’s face on them. Because Gerard’s kids were making a bunch of posters. But it wasn’t. There are some American teachers who are over here teaching the Koreans English at the international schools. It was teachers rooting for Kyle. It was so cool.”
During warm-ups, Mack looked solid. “Of course, we were nervous,” Connie Mack said.
“We took the attitude, it is what it is. He made the final. When we saw him after a couple runs after practice, he felt good.”
Mack laid out a strategy for his three jumps: Land a sure one, then go difficult with the other two.
“I started with my most comfortable one and then did two tricks I’ve never done before,” he said.
Standing at the top of the hill, he felt confident.
“Most contests, I get really nervous,” he said. “This one, I was really calm and collected. I was excited. I knew what I wanted to do. There were butterflies in my stomach, but the crowd here and the whole entire event, it’s something I’ve never experienced before. It’s awesome. It’s insane. This whole event is insane.”
He landed a backside triple cork 1440 — three flips and four rotations.
He walked by his mother and gave her a hug.
“Dude, that was so solid,” she said.
It was a great start and he was in second place.
“Once you land that first run and it’s a great solid run and you got a good score, it gives you more confidence going into the second one,” Connie Mack said.
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That brings us to a funny scene.
Gerard was getting ready for his second jump and Mack offered him some encouragement.
“At the top, right before he dropped for his second run, I’m like, ‘Go get it Red,’” Kyle Mack said. “And he turns back and goes, ‘Bloody?’
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, you are going to see it.’”
Mack wanted to try the bloody Dracula, a frontside double cork 1440, which features two flips, four rotations and a difficult hand grab.
If you crash, you end up with a bloody face.
“I’ve been slamming a lot in practice,” Kyle Mack said. “I’m pretty sore.”
But he nailed it at the Olympics.
Mack might have been more stunned than anybody.
“I never landed it in practice — I finally pulled it off the one time it counted,” he said. “To land it in the second run was mind blowing. It blew me away more than anything. After I rode away, going down the landing, I was like, ‘Wow, I did it. Finally.’”
Now, he was solidly in second place.
“It was definitely a Hail Mary one that I pulled off,” Kyle Mack said. “I was really stoked.
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As the rest of the snowboarders went through their final jumps, somebody could have jumped over Kyle.
Tod was grabbing Connie’s hand.
“It was tense,” said Dylan Malone, Kyle’s agent. “You are never safe unless someone falls twice and there were a lot of guys who didn’t fall twice.”
Mack tried a triple cork 1620 on his last jump, hoping to land it and climb into first place.
But he fell.
“I was just hoping, if he landed it, it might have gotten him the gold, maybe,” Connie said.
The drama wasn’t done
There were five snowboarders left.
“Connie keeps a real straight face, doesn’t show the emotion of how nervous she is,” Malone said.
