PYEONGCHANG, South Korea | The grand plan when Red Gerard and his brothers set down rails and attached a tow rope to a dirt bike to fashion a snowboard park in their backyard wasn’t all that grand.
“Just having fun snowboarding,” Gerard explained.
Look where all that fun landed him.
The 17-year-old snowboarder from just outside of Breckenridge, Colorado, won the Olympic gold medal in slopestyle Sunday, courtesy of a nimble, creative ride through a wind-swept course that left almost everyone else scrambling to keep their footing.
Gerard captured America’s first medal of the Pyeongchang Games — though he was joined later Sunday by Chris Mazdzer, who won silver in the men’s single luge.
Gerard’s family said they’d seen this day coming for years.
“The kid was 2 years old when we started him snowboarding,” said Brendan Gerard, one of Red’s five older siblings. “I can recall him falling down the hill at 2 and him dragging ass behind me. Gave it two weeks, and he started moving faster. By 6, it was inevitable he was going to be something huge.”
Thanks to a blustery wind that swirled upward from the bottom of the mountain, “huge” wasn’t the word of the day on a course already designed to reward technical tricks on the rails and interesting choices below as opposed to sheer massiveness on the jumps.
That couldn’t have suited Gerard much better.
Listed at 5-foot-5 and 116 pounds, he does not overpower courses and slam landings the way that, say, silver and bronze medalists Max Parrot and Mark McMorris of Canada often do. Instead, Gerard relies on the quick reflexes he learned in the tight quarters of his backyard. And unlike most of the other 10 finalists, Gerard didn’t pick the straightest, easiest path through the rails. Instead, he mixed and matched with a variety of lobs and turns over rails and jibs with some cool grabs to match. He was the only contender to fly over a goal post feature in the top section.
On the second-to-last jump, Gerard took a risk by trying a 1080-degree jump off the quarterpipe side of the kicker instead of going straight through the jump and flying higher. The risk is that the landing won’t create enough speed to take into the last ramp, but that worked out fine, too. Gerard closed with a backside triple-cork 1440, and his only thought while in the air was: “Just don’t blow it.”
He didn’t. From here, he travels back to the West Coast for the post-victory TV appearances and sponsor shoots. Then, it’s back to South Korea for the Olympic debut of Big Air, where he could become only the second snowboarder to win two medals at the same Olympics.
Gerard will have his chance to make history later, but Mazdzer accomplished something unprecedented Sunday for USA Luge: a medal in the men’s singles Olympic luge.
Mazdzer won silver, matching the best finish ever for USA Luge in any event at the Olympics — Americans have been second in doubles twice — and giving the native of Saranac Lake, New York, the sort of moment he’s spent half a lifetime chasing.
“It’s 16 years in the making, what you dream about as a young child and 20 years later you’re finally on the podium,” Mazdzer said. “I still don’t know how to describe it. All I know is that I have my friends and family here celebrating with me and this is validation. Everything I’ve done, all the sacrifices, it’s worth it.”
David Gleirscher of Austria was a surprise winner, finishing his four runs at the Alpensia Sliding Center in 3 minutes, 10.702 seconds for the gold. It was Austria’s first in men’s luge in 50 years, and Gleirscher’s first major international medal ever — he’s never even had one on the World Cup circuit. Mazdzer finished in 3:10.728 and Johannes Ludwig of Germany took third in 3:10.932.
Gold-medal favorite and two-time defending champion Felix Loch of Germany was the leader going into the final run, then skidded his way to fifth.
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