Two days after Team USA’s snowboarders struggled, its skiers thrived.
Americans Joss Christensen, Gus Kenworthy and Nick Goepper took gold, silver and bronze, respectively, in men’s slopestyle Thursday, sweeping the podium for just the third time in U.S. Winter Olympic history.
The only events in which the U.S. had previously claimed all three medals were men’s figure skating in 1956 and men’s halfpipe snowboarding in 2002.
“It’s the kind of thing you don’t even let yourself think about,” U.S. coach Skogen Sprang said of the medal sweep, via ESPN.com. “I still don’t believe it happened.”
Christensen, the final skier named to the U.S. slopestyle team, was the first to ride in the finals, and his first-run score of 95.80 held up for the duration. Kenworthy finished second with a 93.60, and Goepper, the gold-medal favorite, took third at 92.40.
The final skier to ride, Norway’s Andreas Haatveit, was unable to break up the American monopoly, finishing fourth.
Christensen expressed his joy and surprise with his team’s clean sweep on Twitter after the medal ceremony.
[tweet https://twitter.com/josschristensen/statuses/433937624353738752 align=’center’]
Photo via Twitter/@SportsCenter
