Teen Gerard wins slopestyle snowboarding for USA’s 1st gold

Published 5:20 am Sunday, February 11, 2018

By Staff Reports

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — Teenager Red Gerard has won the United States’ first gold medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics, edging Canadians Max Parrot and Mark McMorris in men’s slopestyle snowboarding.

Gerard, a 17-year-old from Silverthorne, Colorado, drilled his third and final run on the chilly but sun-splashed course at Phoenix Snow Park. His score of 87.16 was just enough to slip by Parrot.

Parrot washed out in his first two runs but nailed his final trip through the tricky series of rails and jumps to post a score of 86.00. McMorris took third after putting up a score of 85.20 in his second run.

Gerard is the second straight American to win the event, which made its Olympic debut four years ago.

NBC gets nearly 28M TV viewers for Olympic opening ceremony



NEW YORK (AP) — Highlights from media coverage of the Pyeongchang Olympics:

RATINGS: The opening ceremony on Friday night reached 27.8 million viewers on NBC, a number that inched up to 28.3 million when digital viewers are added. While that’s down from the 31.7 million who watched the opening in Sochi four years ago, it has to rate as positive news for the network. The opening in Pyeongchang had 6 percent more viewers than the Summer Olympics ceremony in Rio de Janiero in 2016, and it was the most watched Friday night on television since Sochi’s first night four years ago. NBC’s viewership peaked at 31.5 million when the U.S. team entered the stadium in South Korea.

AFTERNOON STARS: With competition ramping up and the United States still hunting for medals, NBC did a nice job Saturday afternoon focusing on some stars and sports more popular elsewhere in the world. Most notable were South Korean triumphs in speedskating and the German stars Felix Loch in luge and biathlete Lauren Dahlmeier. “Germany loves their biathletes,” said NBC’s Chad Salmela.

Figure skating and Alpine: What to watch

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — The unified Korean women’s hockey team took the spotlight on Day 1 — despite its 8-0 loss to Switzerland. Day 2 features the figure skating team event and the men’s downhill.

Here are some key things to watch. All times Central:

FIGURE SKATING

Prime time for TV in North America means early starts for the figure skaters at the Gangneung Ice Arena, where Patrick Chan and Nathan Chen and Co. are competing for Olympic medals at a time when they’re more accustomed to practice.

Chan and Chen took tumbles during the short program of the team competition but their teams were still first and second heading into the second day of the competition. That starts at 10 a.m. local time, which is 7 p.m. Central.

Chan’s Canadians lead with 17 points, three clear of Chen’s Americans. Japan is third with 13 points, marginally ahead of the Russian team after the men’s short program and the pairs short program.

“In my case I was so thankful I had the support of my teammates on and off the ice,” said Chan, who fell on his opening quad toe loop and again on a triple axel to place third in the short program.

The team event continues with the ice dance short program, the women’s short program and pairs free skate.