Teenager Gerard wins first gold for US at 2018 Winter Olympics

Winter Olympics 2018: US teenager Red Gerard wins men’s slopestyle[/caption] Teenager Red Gerard snatched a dramatic gold medal in the men’s slopestyle to win the United States’ first gold of the Pyeongchang Games. The 17-year-old scored 87.16 on his final run with just four other athletes left to complete their third run. Canadian pair Max Parrot and Mark McMorris took silver and bronze respectively. “I feel awesome and so stoked about today,” Gerard said. “I cannot believe what has just happened it is insane.” Jamie Nicholls, Billy Morgan and Rowan Coultas all fell in qualifying on Saturday meaning there were no Britons in the final. Gerard made mistakes in his first two runs but produced a clean final effort which was well rewarded by the judges. He was just 13 when Sage Kotsenburg won slopestyle gold for the US at the 2014 Games in Sochi. Until the late stages of the final run it had looked like McMorris would take an emotional gold medal, less than 12 months after a near-fatal crash. Last March he suffered a fractured jaw, left arm, pelvis and ribs, ruptured spleen and a collapsed lung after colliding with a tree when snowboarding and led with a score of 85.20 from his second run. Parrot almost climbed to the top of the standings with an excellent final run of the competition but had to settle for silver with a score of 86.00. Some of the finalists struggled in gusty conditions, particularly in the first run, on the same day the men’s downhill event was postponed due to high winds. Source: BBC]]>