The aerial skier has won a silver medal at Sochi – Australia’s first Olympic medal in the event.
Australia regularly sees lesser known figures produce breakthrough results and surpass media darlings and medal hopefuls and Sochi is no different.
Morris, a 29-year-old former gymnast from Melbourne, is the country’s only male aerial skier.
He was so excited at winning his first Olympic medal that he thought he was going to be sick.
“It means so much. I am the only boy in Australia doing this. I was told at the start I wouldn’t be good enough and now I have a silver medal at the Winter Olympics,” he said after the event.
Photo: Getty Images
Morris has played second fiddle to the better established women’s aerials for the last eight years, travelling the world with an all-female team and dealing with repeated rejections from scholarship applications at the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia (OWIA).
Landing four straight jumps perfectly while his competitors crashed, he won with style yet retained his modesty.
“I have imagined this for a long time and it panned out like I imagined.
“You saw the quality of those guys. If they had landed their best jumps there, no way I would have come second. I know that I am not the best jumper out there. I got lucky.”
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
This is Australia’s third medal at the Sochi Games, already equalling Australia’s record Winter Olympics tally from the Vancouver Games four years ago.
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