The first time I did it, I couldn’t believe it. Red Gerrard wasn’t just surprised to win a medal at the Olympics. He was surprised that he even made it to the Olympic finals.
In Pyeongchang in 2018, Gerrard was a fresh-faced American teenager who knew nothing. He stayed up the night before the snowboarding slopestyle finals, watched “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” on Netflix with a friend, and overslept the next morning. In a hurry to be on time, he had to borrow his friend’s jacket. It happened to be two sizes too big. It hung down to her thighs.
it doesn’t matter. He jumped from 11th to 1st on his final run. He won the gold medal by more than one point.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Gerard said eight years later. “It was a complete surprise.”
He was the youngest American snowboarder to win an Olympic gold medal at age 17, and the youngest Winter Olympian to win a gold medal since 1928.
The second time brought a different kind of distrust. Gerard was the defending champion at the 2022 Olympics and was on the cusp of winning his second consecutive gold medal when expectations were not met and disappointment set in.
He finished in 4th place.
That led to frustration, with Gerald and other snowboarders in Beijing expressing displeasure at what they saw as inconsistent judging. Gerard called it a “heartbreaking event.” He wasn’t in his prime, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“There’s a bit of politics behind it,” he says. “But that’s kind of what we’re dealing with. … I was down for a few days too. That’s the most frustrating thing about our sport, that’s being judged, and in any competition, whether you have 30 riders or 60 riders, no one will ever agree on how you’re judged.”
Red Gerrard celebrates after winning gold in PyeongChang 2018 (Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images)
He arrived in Italy this month hoping to redeem himself and maybe make history in the process. It all started with a 20th place finish in the Big Air Qualifier, when Gerard had no interest in competing. However, since all snowboarders are required to compete in both big air and slopestyle, he was competing early in the competition and wasn’t satisfied with it.
“To be honest, I don’t understand why we have to do something like this,” he said. “I don’t like doing this. It’s not my fun.”
The 25-year-old, who was born in Cleveland and raised in Silverthorne, Colorado, enjoys slopestyle. It was his bread and butter, the event that made him famous, if only for a moment, in 2018. And if he wins again, he would become the first snowboarder to win two Olympic gold medals in slopestyle.
Gerald was a laid-back boarder who had a very easy-going personality and grew up watching the X Games and Dew Tour, following his five brothers around the backyard and practicing jumping and jumping off rails. In fact, for a while, the Gerards considered competitions to be “pretty lame,” Red admits, “kind of like something you shouldn’t do.”
It wasn’t until he racked up wins and made the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team that his brothers realized he was onto something.
Then 2018 arrived. And everything changed.
“The funny thing is, when you win a gold medal, you go from being an unknown snowboarder to an A-list celebrity in a minute or two,” he said. “Then, after a month or so, you’re back to being an F-list celebrity.”
He remembers being jostled while walking through New York City to fulfill numerous media requests.
“I don’t know how the Justin Bieber’s of the world are doing it,” Gerrard said. “I literally have no idea how celebrities move around the planet.”
Fame is not a goal. This is my second gold medal.
Red Gerrard finished 11th in qualifying for Wednesday’s slopestyle final. (Milo Moravsky/Agens Zoom/Getty Images)
Gerrard is currently one of the faces of the U.S. Snowboard Team, which has sponsorships including Toyota, Mountain Dew, Oakley, and Quiksilver. He finished Sunday’s qualifying in 11th place, earning him a ticket to Wednesday’s final. He will be at his best again heading into the Olympics with back-to-back X Games wins.
He will be joined by 17-year-old teammates Ollie Martin and Jake Canter, who finished fourth in the big air despite breaking his arm two weeks ago while still in high school. Both will be making their Olympic debuts.
“It’s a very heavy game so we’ll be sitting nervous,” Gerrard said.
The final is scheduled to start in Livigno at 12:30pm local time (6:30am ET). No need for an alarm clock. Gerrard plans to arrive at the track early to study the top section and closely analyze the rails to imagine what his winning run will be like. After that, he will aim for another gold medal.