Americans sweep ski slopestyle medals

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia -- Joss Christensen was the last men's slopestyle skier to make the U.S. Olympic team, but on Thursday he put together dominant runs, leading a sweep of medals for the Americans.
Christensen scored 95.8 in the final to win gold. Teammates Gus Kenworthy (93.6) and Nick Goepper (92.4) took silver and bronze respectively at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
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Christensen, a discretionary pick on the U.S. team, posted the highest score on his first run, landing a triple cork. On his second run, he scored 93.80.
The 22-year-old skier from Park City, Utah, posted the three best scores of the day, including his second run in qualifying.
Christensen may have been viewed as an underdog, but his teammates and rival skiers believed he was the favorite based on his week of training leading up to Thursday's competition. U.S. skier Bobby Brown, after watching Christensen's qualifying runs, told reporters his teammate was "unbeatable."
His winning run included a switch triple 1440, which means Christensen approached the jump while skiing backwards. He didn't add it to his run until two days ago, perfecting the jump during training.
Kenworthy and Goepper also landed the difficult triple cork jump in their medal runs.
It marked only the third time that the U.S. has swept the medals in a Winter Games event. The other two were in men's figure skating at the 1956 Games in Cortina d' Ampezzo and men's snowboard halfpipe at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
Skiers shed layers of clothing throughout the day as temperatures on the mountain were close to 50 degrees. Many said the course was ideal despite the warm weather. Brown skied in just a T-shirt for the final, the first time he's done that in a competition, he said.
"I mean it's been incredible to showcase our sport to the world," Kenworthy said. "We have an aweseome course, beautiful weather and it was one of the best slopestyle competitions we've ever had. I really couldn't be prouder."
Besides the three medalists, Brown also made the final and finished ninth.
"You kind of think about it before, but you don't expect it to happen," coach Skogen Sprang said of the U.S. medal sweep. "I knew they all had a chance to medal whether it was one or or three. They did their jobs, stomped their runs and crushed it."
Slopestyle skiing and snowboarding made their Winter Games debut here. American Devin Logan won silver in the women's event Tuesday.