The United States has claimed the first gold medal of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games thanks to Sage Kotsenburg’s performance in the slopestyle skiing competition.
Slopestyle is a new event making it’s debut in Russia and has been surrounded by a cloud of uncertainty after several athletes got injured in practice rounds and America’s golden boy of snowboarding, Shaun White withdrew from the event citing concerns over the course’s safety.
Kotsenburg was able to out ski rival Staale Sandbech of Norway with a score of 93.50, thus giving Team USA its first hardware of these games.
Most importantly, America beat This Guy With The Hair: http://t.co/EDBf9okznD Photo via Paul Gilham, Getty pic.twitter.com/lGcVfkLOVJ
— SB Nation (@sbnation) February 8, 2014
WOW!! I just won the Olympics!! Bringing back the first Gold here to the USA! Love seeing all the support from everyone YOU RULE!!
— sage kotsenburg (@sagekotsenburg) February 8, 2014
WOW team USA’s first gold medal in Sochi Olympics: Sage Kotsenburg in Men’s Snowboard Slope-style. Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/zMLHjT6fvs
— Negar Mortazavi ???? (@NegarMortazavi) February 8, 2014
Amazingly good NYT visualization of Sage Kotsenburg’s gold-medal slopestyle run. h/t @Duenes http://t.co/uxCxM3OFcf pic.twitter.com/3OqgMsUOWN
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) February 8, 2014
USA’s Sage Kotsenburg wins the 1st gold medal at Sochi! Check out our SoundOff on the big win: http://t.co/TmH72t0BGK pic.twitter.com/BmVyltk9ja
— The Sports Quotient (@sportsquotient) February 8, 2014
The US earned its first gold medal earlier thanks to @sagekotsenburg . pic.twitter.com/ScZrAhred4
— Absolute Bail Bonds (@absolutebailCA) February 8, 2014
” @Sochi2014 : We’ve just had the 1st Medal Ceremony in the Olympic Park. Great to see @sagekotsenburg pick up his Gold pic.twitter.com/VLIM3F00CB
— Josel MB (@Real_Josel_MB) February 8, 2014
Event organizers are hoping that by adding slopestyle to the Olympics, a new wave of snowboarding fans will visit the Winter Games to follow.
A panel of judges gave Kotsenburg, from Utah, the 93.50 he needed to make history and win the first gold for the United States.
The American was joined on the first Olympic men’s slopestyle podium by Staale Sandbech of Norway (91.75) and Mark McMorris of Canada (88.75).
An ecstatic Kotsenburg, who was still having a hard time grasping the reality of what had happened commented afterwards:
“It feels awesome, I don’t know what to call it. I have no idea what’s actually going on. This is the craziest thing that ever happened.”
Slopestyle — in which competitors perform extremely difficult tricks at high altitudes — has been a mainstream at the Winter X Games, but is only now making its debut at the Sochi Olympics.
“Snowboarding has no kind of limits,” said Sandbech. “You can do bigger tricks and you can do more spins and flips. You can do creative grabs and you can do more grabs Sage obviously did some super tech creative grabs and a 1620 – he had such a sick rail run.”
The United States will get another chance at a medal in slopestyle when the women take the course on Sunday.
