“What the f***? Hoooly sh*t!”
The profound reaction of Red Gerard on live television, upon winning Gold in slopestyle snowboarding on Saturday night, intrigued me to find out more about the seventeen year old. For those readers who were unaware, the 2018 Winter Olympics began this past Thursday night in Pyeongchang, South Korea. America picked up its first gold medal by Saturday night, in the men’s slopestyle snowboarding. Slopestyle skiing and snowboarding is a sport wherein the athlete skis or snowboards down a steep course featuring rails, jumps, and terrain park features, winning points for amplitude, originality, and tricks. After his first two runs down the course, American Redmond Gerard was in eleventh place out of eleven; dead last. But his third and final run proved to be a gamechanger. His flawless run ended by sticking a “backside cork 1440” off of the last jump – a trick which none of the other slopestylers had shown doable that night. This risky maneuver consists of boarding backwards off of the takeoff, followed by four full rotations in the air and three off-axis dips before (hopefully) landing. In the words of the NBC commentators, seventeen-year-old Gerard “made it look easy.” To go from last place to first is no frequent occurrence, so Gerard’s explicit reaction when his score was revealed comes as no surprise. Unfortunately for Gerard, the swearing was captured on live television, and the press has not been very forgiving. Type in “Red Gerard” to Google, and you’ll find article titles enhancing the reaction, such as “Swearing Olympian Wins Gold” and “Snowboarder Drops F-bomb on Live TV”. Luckily, among all of the hooha about Red’s language, the sports world was impressed by his outstanding performance at such a young age and he received much praise. Not only is his casual language relatable: Red stated in an interview that he indeed wants to finish high school. Finally, when asked how he wanted to celebrate, he responded that he hoped to go out to a nice dinner with his family. So, though the skills of many Olympians make them seem inhuman, they have small goals too! And sometimes, a rather unadvanced vocabulary.