BEIJING, China — The women’s snowboarding slopestyle final brought good news for the United States as Julia Marino was able to win Team USA's first medal of the Winter Olympics.
American Jamie Anderson, who had hoped to make history by becoming the first snowboarder to win gold in the same event at three consecutive Games, finished ninth on the windy course. Fellow American Hailey Langland finished 11th.
History was still made during the final as Zoi Sadowski Synnott won New Zealand's first gold medal in Winter Olympics history.
As for Marino, she put together a picture-perfect Run 2, perhaps a career-best, with a cab double underflip 900 and a frontside double 1080 to claim snowboard slopestyle silver.
Sadowski Synnott went into her last of three runs trailing Marino but came up big.
The 20-year-old Sadowski Synnott was one of the very few to put down a clean run on a supersized course, where hardpacked snow and bone-cold wind chills made things difficult on all 12 finalists.
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 tackled her at the finish line to celebrate.
A few minutes later, the scoreboard confirmed it, and New Zealand had its first Winter Games victory — brought home by an Australian-born shredder whose family moved to her father’s homeland when she was six.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.