Teenager Gerard wins US’ first Olympic gold

FE Team | Published: February 11, 2018 20:02:10

Teenager Red Gerard snatched a dramatic gold medal in the men's slopestyle to win the United States' first Winter Olympics gold in Pyeongchang, reports BBC Sport.
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.
But while the men's slopestyle did go ahead, the blustery weather meant the women's event and the men's downhill skiing had to be postponed and rescheduled.
Colorado-based Gerard does much of his training in a facility built by him and his older brothers in the back garden of his family home.
He made mistakes in his first two runs with the conditions causing problems but produced a clean final effort which was well rewarded by the judges.
The victory for Gerard, who was just 13 when Sage Kotsenburg won slopestyle gold for the US at the 2014 Games in Sochi, sees him become the second-youngest man to win gold in an individual event at the Winter Games, after Finland's Toni Nieminen triumphed in the individual large hill event in ski jumping in 1992 aged 16 years and 261 days.