Thursday, February 13, 2014

USA sweeps men's ski slopestyle medals

The Americans continued their dominance in ski slopestyle by taking not only gold but all three medals in the event Thursday in Sochi. Joss Christensen led the sweep by taking home the gold after a monster final run score of 95.80, defined by a triple corkscrew on the final jump. 

Christensen was joined on the podium by Gus Kenworthy in the silver position and the top-ranked skier in the world Nicholas Goepper for the bronze. The only other skier to crack 90 points was Norway's Andreas Haatveit, who finished with a 91.80 to Goepper's 92.40.



With the medal sweep in the men's event, that means the USA won gold in three of the four events on the course (men's and women's ski slopestyle, men's and women's snowboard slopestyle) as Christensen joined Jamie Anderson and Sage Kotsenburg as champions.

Just how rare is a medal sweep for the US in Winter Olympic history? The two previous times were in 1956 (men's figure skating) and in 2002 (halfpipe snowboarding).


Unfortunately for the USA, there are no more slopestyle events in the Games.


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