Jake Canter Wins Olympic Bronze Ten Years After Serious Injury

Team USA's Jake Canter, a 22-year-old from Colorado, made his Olympic debut at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games and took bronze in the men's slopestyle event. He had earlier placed 15th in the men's Big Air; Su Yiming of China won gold and Taiga Hasegawa of Japan won silver.

The medal carries particular weight because doctors once gave him a 20 percent chance to live after a brutal 2016 accident. In his early teens, while practicing jumps on a trampoline after time on the slopes, he collided with another user who'd drifted off course mid-air and suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

In 2017 he suffered serious earaches, passed out at home and was hospitalized; physicians discovered a spinal fluid leak from the previous injury that led to bacterial meningitis. Medical staff placed him in a medically induced coma for six days and told his parents he had just a 20 percent chance of survival.

United States, Colorado

jake canter, slopestyle, big air, milan cortina, 2026 olympics, bronze medal, su yiming, taiga hasegawa, fractured skull, bacterial meningitis