Elizabeth Muirhead ‘20
Assistant Sports Editor
On Saturday evening, from the comfort of the Scales living room, 15 plus smithies gathered to watch the best athletes in the world compete.
It was the second night of the Olympics, and NBC was broadcasting men’s slopestyle, women’s figure skating and ice dancing. It was around 8 p.m. in Northampton, which means that it was 10 am in Pyeongchang.
The crowd was fixated on men’s slopestyle, in which snowboarders go off rails and jump. They award points for the technical difficulty and execution of their elements. Similar to sports like figure skating or gymnastics, it’s go big or go home. More technically complex moves rack up more points, but they’re harder to execute cleanly and without falling.
In men’s snowboarding slopestyle, the top 12 athletes from qualifiers compete, and they each get three runs. Only the score from their best run is counted, which gives athletes the freedom to take risks. When athletes fall and make mistakes, scores run around 40 or 45. Medaling scores typically run in the 80s.
By around 9 p.m., every athlete had completed their second pass down the mountain. Canadian athlete Mark McMorris sat in first place with a score of 85.20.
Red Gerard, at 17-year-old from Colorado geared up for his final run. He was sitting in last place after two unsuccessful passes down the mountain. Red Gerard had earned scores of 43.33 and a 46.40, indicating that he had fallen on previous runs. He needed to break 80 in his final pass to even be in the running for a medal.
The crowd in Scales House was anxious, on the edge of their seats, and hopeful for the underdog, teen from Colorado.
Gradually with composure and balance, Gerard inched the nose of his board toward the edge to begin his third and final run. The course begins with rail portions, and riders rack up points with complexity and control. They need to move on and off the rails softly and gracefully.
Red selected unique and unconventional moves like an inverted hand plant, which gave his run a touch of style and helped him stand out from the other athletes. The rail portion was completed cleanly.
Then, he moved on to the three jumps, which is where athletes gain or lose huge points. He had fallen on jumps in previous passes. As he went off the first jump, the crowd in Scales held their breath. Impressive flips and spins, following by the cutting sound of landing on snow; he had landed it perfectly.
The tension in the room loosened for a few seconds, quiet claps and exclamations of relief that he had cleared the first jump. The room tensed and loosen again as we watched his land his second jump. Red had one final jump, and with the ease and precision that only champions have, he executed a backside triple cork 1440, landing softly on the snow.
When they announced his score, 87.16, the room erupted in applause for the kid from Colorado. The United States finally brought home their first gold medal of the games, on the back of a 17-year-old.
