AIDAN POLLARD
Staff Writer
Think back to when you were a junior in high school. Now imagine you were the first 2018 gold medalist for the U.S. as well.
Redmond Gerard is the newest American Olympic gold medalist. He’s a 17-year-old kid from Ohio, and on Sunday he went from dead last in the men’s slopestyle snowboarding competition to taking home the gold. For reference, even Shaun White’s first gold medal win was in 2006 when he was 20 years old.
As of Sunday afternoon, Red’s medal is one of only two medals the U.S. has won so far, and it is the only gold medal for America. In the Olympic slopestyle snowboarding competition, each competitor has three chances to impress judges and garner the highest score possible. Going into Red’s third and final run, he was sitting dead last, and in a last-ditch Hail Mary effort, he pulled together an 87.16-point score that secured him in first place. Gerard’s first two runs were fairly rough and his best score going into the last run was a 46.40; so in his most important run, Red nearly doubled his previous score.
In his winning run, Gerard pulled off a 1440 degree spin, which is four full 360 degree rotations. After Red got his score and realized he’d edged out Canadian Max Parrot’s best score of 86.00, he covered his goggles with his gloves and let out a “Holy shit!” to an entire crowd of support cheering him on in temperatures well below freezing at the outside slope course in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Perhaps unexpectedly, Red was not a big Olympics fan as a child. In an interview with the Telegraph he stated, “I just didn’t think I knew what the Olympics [was a kid].”
So not only did Red come from all the way in last place in the Olympics, he came from a place where he didn’t even necessarily know exactly how big of a deal it was going to become for him.
This is not to say that Red was not qualified to be in the games to begin with, he’s actually a well-decorated Junior and World Cup snowboarder. In 2015, he came fourth overall in the Junior world championships for slopestyle, and then in 2017 he stood first in the World Cup for slopestyle and fourth overall.
For an athlete of only 17 years, who stands 5’5” tall and weighs 116 pounds, Red’s accomplishment on Sunday is nothing to brush over. This will likely be a life-changing event and massive boost to his professional career with snowboarding company Burton.
Red will also compete in the Big Air snowboarding competition on Tuesday, Feb. 20. There he will have the chance to qualify again for the final round and possibly bring home another medal for the U.S.
The Olympics will surely be filled with many other electrifying moments, but for right now, Red Gerard is the most celebrated American athlete in these 2018 Winter Olympics.