USA sweeps men's ski slopestyle medals, Joss Christensen wins gold
By Brian Stubits | Hockey writer
Joss Christensen flanked by Gus Kenworthy and Nicholas Goepper. (USATSI)
For one more time, the slopestyle course was good to the United States on Thursday, really good.
The Americans continued their dominance by taking not only gold but all three medals in the men's ski slopestyle event, a sweep of the podium. Joss Christensen took home the gold after a monster final run score of 95.80, punctuated by a triple corkscrew on the final jump. That followed up his qualification runs which were also tops in the field.
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Christensen was joined on the podium by Gus Kenworthy -- the puppy-loving American -- 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 the medal sweep for the US? Incredibly.
This is only #TeamUSA's third sweep in #Olympic Winter Games history. #GOTEAMUSA
— US Olympic Team (@USOlympic) February 13, 2014Coming into the event, certainly the USA had strong medal contenders but Christensen didn't figure to be at the top of the list. He entered the competition ranked 34th in the world but was simply superb on Thursday. A fourth American, third-ranked Bobby Brown, finished in ninth place.
Unfortunately for the USA, there are no more slopestyle events in the Games. It has been a fountain of success for the US with three of the four gold medals won so far coming from the slopes and six of the 12 medals earned so far.
