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Can Team USA’s Red Gerard take gold in Men’s Snowboarding Slopestyle final Saturday?

By Michelle Bruton

PARK CITY, UT - SEPTEMBER 27: Snowboarder Red Gerard poses for a portrait during the Team USA Media Summit ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games on September 27, 2017 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
PARK CITY, UT - SEPTEMBER 27: Snowboarder Red Gerard poses for a portrait during the Team USA Media Summit ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games on September 27, 2017 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /
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One day after the qualification round, the 2018 Winter Olympics men’s slopestyle finalists will compete for the gold medal on Saturday night in Pyeongchang.

Two nations established themselves as powerhouses in the qualification round of the men’s slopestyle discipline on Friday.

Canada and Norway will both send four riders each to the final runs of the slopestyle event — and Team Canada earned the two highest scores of the qualifiers thanks to incredible second runs by both Max Parrot and Mark McMorris in Heat 2.

Here are the 12 finalists in men’s slopestyle:

  1. Max Parrot, Canada, 87.36
  2. Mark McMorris, Canada, 86.83
  3. Marcus Kleveland, Norway, 83.71
  4. Red Gerard, United States, 82.55
  5. Staale Sandbech, Norway, 82.13
  6. Carlos Garcia Knight, New Zealand, 80.10
  7. Tyler Nicholson, Canada, 79.21
  8. Seppe Smits, Belgium, 78.36
  9. Sebastien Toutant, Canada, 78.01
  10. Mons Roisland, Norway, 76.50
  11. Torgeir Bergrem, Norway, 75.45
  12. Niklas Mattsson, Sweden, 73.53

All the information you need to watch the men’s slopestyle final is below, as well as a preview of the athletes who will hope to earn a spot on the podium on Saturday.

The entire Olympic snowboarding schedule can be found here.

How to Watch: 

TV: NBC, NBCSN

Live Stream: NBCOlympics.com

App: NBC Sports

Date: Saturday, Feb. 10

Start Time: 8:00 p.m. ET 

What to Watch:

In a departure from the 2014 Sochi Games, which saw the slopestyle final round include only two runs, the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang will feature three runs. The third run is the gold medal event:

  • Men’s Slopestyle Final Run 1 (8:00 p.m. ET)
  • Men’s Slopestyle Final Run 2 (8:32 p.m. ET)
  • Men’s Slopestyle Final Run 3 (9:04 p.m. ET)

Riders will awarded up to 100 points as a panel of judges evaluates their runs for execution, amplitude, difficulty and variety.

Parrot and McMorris threw down the gauntlet in the qualification round, each improving on his first run score to end with the top two scores in the field.

Both Canadians threw down clean backside triple cork 1440s, one of the hardest tricks in snowboarding, that impressed the judges.

The United States took home the first-ever men’s slopestyle gold medal at the event’s debut in 2014 thanks to Sage Kostenburg and his eye-popping tricks, including a backside 1620 japan that likely sealed the deal. (That’s 4.5 full rotations in the air.)

But with Kostenburg sitting the 2018 Sochi Games out, the Americans’ best chance to bring home a medal in the event rests on the (very small) shoulders of 17-year-old Red Gerard, who makes his Olympics debut.

Make sure to tune in at 8 p.m. ET Saturday night for what should be a sequence of mind-boggling tricks as these riders hurtle down the course in hopes of earning a shiny piece of hardware.

Next: Best Olympian from each state

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