Canadian Max Parrot became Olympic slopestyle champion in Beijing three years after learning he had cancer.
Three years ago, he saw his life turn upside down with horror. In 2019, Canadian Max Parrot learned that he had cancer. But on Monday, in Beijing, it was the smile of a young man who took his revenge that lit up the podium. Max Parott won gold in snowboard slopestyle, his first Olympic gold medal, four years after winning silver in Pyeongchang, South Korea. “Participating in my third Games after going through what I’ve been through and finding myself on my board among the best in the world means a lot to me,” he told the “Journal de Montréal”.
When he discovered he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Max Parott “had to stop everything to fight,” he told AP. “I went through hell. This is the first time I had to put the snowboard in a closet. I felt like a lion in a cage,” he recalled. “I was 24, an athlete, healthy, non-smoker. Then, I was told, overnight, that I had cancer. It is certain that from this moment on, you appreciate life three times more, you no longer take anything for granted, you learn to love the little things. It changes a lot of things”, he confided to “La Presse Canada”. The 27-year-old’s world froze but he never thought of “stopping”.
“I announced to the world in a press conference that I had cancer”
As the twelve chemotherapy sessions hit his muscles hard, while he was sick and slowly losing his energy, Max Parrot found solace on social media, documenting his ordeal and receiving hundreds of messages Support. So much so that he chose to make a film of it, “Max: the fight of a lifetime”, in which the cameras follow his painful fight. Available on its website, it is accompanied by a collection of donations which must be donated half to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada (SLLC), and the other part must make it possible to finance the shooting of the film.
“3 years ago, to the day today, I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I announced to the world in a press conference that I had cancer. It’s always easy to talk about positive things, but when it comes to talking about your biggest fear, that you could die in a few months, it’s desperately difficult,” he wrote on Instagram. at the end of January, when he was preparing to unveil his documentary to the whole world. “It is with mixed feelings that tomorrow I will post the eight months of my life, showing my struggle and my vulnerable self, the darkest moments of my entire life. Moments that I sometimes want to forget, but which show how much it is possible to fight for anything in life.
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