Zoi Sadowski Synnott won New Zealand's first gold medal in Winter Olympics history, stomping down a pressure-packed run on her last trip down the mountain Sunday to win the title in women's slopestyle.
The 20-year-old was one of the very few to put down clean run on a supersized course, where hardpacked snow and bone-cold wind chills made things difficult for all 12 finalists, including two-time defending champion Jamie Anderson, who finished ninth.
Sadowski Synnott went into her last of three runs trailing American Julia Marino but came up big.
She landed a double-cork 1080 on the second jump, and while not repeating that jump the way she did when she won the Winter X Games last month, her backside 1080 off the final kicker was more than enough.
She raised her hands in the air after landing, knowing what she'd done. Marino and third-place finisher Tess Coady of Australia knew it, too. They gang-tackled her at the finish line to celebrate.
FIGURE SKATING
Olympic favorite Kamila Valieva nearly eclipsed her own world record in the short program of the team figure skating event at the Beijing Olympics. That sends her Russian team into the lead heading into the men's free skate later Sunday.
The 15-year-old Valieva's score of 90.18 points to In Memoriam by the Russian pianist and composer Kirill Richter at the Beijing Games was just off the record of 90.45 points set just weeks ago at the European championships.
The Russians moved into first place with 36 points, two ahead of Day 1 leader Team USA and seven ahead of Japan.
Karen Chen took the ice for the Americans but made a couple of mistakes, including a fall on her triple loop near the end of the program. That left her in fifth place in the short program and cost her team valuable points.
Wakaba Higuchi was second, pushing her Japanese team into podium contention. Reigning gold medalist Canada survived the cutoff thanks to a strong performance from Madeline Schizas, while China claimed the last spot in the free skates by winning a tiebreaker with Georgia.
ALPINE SKIING
The start of the men's downhill skiing competition at the Beijing Games has been postponed because of high winds.
The race was scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Beijing time, but organizers will decide at that time if it can start an hour later.
It's the first race of the Alpine competition at the Winter Olympics.
Saturday's third and final training session had to be canceled because of high winds.
The world's best skiers only saw The Rock course up close for the first time Thursday.
