BEIJING, China — Defending gold medalist and Silverthorne resident Red Gerard just missed getting his second Olympic medal in slopestyle in Beijing.
Gerard was sitting in the bronze-medal position when Canadian Mark McMorris edged past him into the third spot on his final run.
McMorris scored 88.53 on that run. Gerard's highest score was 83.25, which he got on his first run. In the slopestyle event, each competitor does three runs and only their highest score is counted.
Gerard's teammate Chris Corning finished sixth with a score of 65.11. Corning is also from Silverthorne.
Gerard was 17 when he went to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. He flew to the top of the snowboard world when he earned gold and become the youngest person to earn gold at the Winter Olympics since 1928.
In the years that followed, Gerard has stayed on top of the slopestyle world. He recently won the Dew Tour at Copper Mountain, an international competition that secured his spot at the Games.
Snowboarding has become something Gerard has taken a leadership role in over the past four years, jumping into side projects and getting into snowboarding films and efforts to get more children into snowboarding by building small beginner terrain parks at more ski areas. They're called “Red’s Parks” and are similar to his own backyard park in Silverthorne.
Gerard is the sixth of seven children – he has four brothers and two sisters. According to his bio on the U.S. Ski & Snowboard website, he quickly learned that “if he didn’t keep up, he’d be left behind."
He started snowboarding when he was 2 years old. His family moved to Summit County in 2007, according to Team USA.
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