USA's Kotsenburg Wins First Gold In Olympic

He came to these Olympics determined to stay his chilled-out, snowboarding self at the pressure-packed Winter Games and, in his own words, continue to “march to his own beat.” With that attitude and special flair, 20-year-old Sage Kotsenburg of Park City, Utah, marched off with the first gold medal of the 2014 Sochi Olympics in men’s slopestyle on Saturday at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. This marked the Olympic debut of one of the livelier extreme sports and Kotsenburg won it with an eye-popping first run in the final, earning 93.50 points. Taking the silver was Staale Sandbech of Norway and Mark McMorris of Canada grabbed the bronze medal. As Kotsenburg, who earned his spot in the finals by placing second in the semifinals earlier Saturday, prepared for his run, he called his older brother, Blaze, who was at home in Park City, and U.S. coach Bill Enos to share a crazy idea. He wanted to throw a trick called "Back 16 Japan" on his first run in the Olympic finals, never mind that he hadn't tried the move in practice or prior competition. No one talked him out of it.But after expectations of at the very least two Canadians medaling, only one finished on the podium. Mark McMorris earned the bronze medal behind silver medalist Staale Sandbech of Norway and Sage Kotsenburg of the U.S.