Powerhouse U.S Women’s Snowboarding team could sweep slopestyle final

Team USA women have never swept the podium at a Winter Olympics event, but the women competing in Pyeongchang in the 2018 Winter Olympics are eyeing that historic feat.

On Saturday night, the United States earned its first gold medal in the 2018 Winter Games as 17-year-old snowboarder Red Gerard edged Canadians Mark McMorris and Max Parrot in the slopestyle finals.

Now, on Sunday night, 17-year-old Olympics rookie Hailey Langland looks to match that accomplishment. But her strongest competition will come not from another nation, but from her very own American teammates — fellow rookie Julia Marino (20) and Olympics veterans Jamie Anderson (27) and Jessika Jenson (26).

Anderson, Jenson, Marino and Langland have a unique opportunity ahead of them on Sunday night. The women’s slopestyle qualification, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Korea Time on Sunday afternoon (11:30 p.m. ET), was canceled due to heavy winds.

As a result, all 27 women in the field will advance to the finals, which will air at 8:00 p.m. ET Sunday night. (Update: the event has been pushed back to 9:00 p.m. ET due to weather.)

In a departure from the discipline’s structure in the 2014 Sochi Games, the women’s slopestyle final in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics was set to be divided into three runs each for the 12 finalists from the qualifier.

Now that 27 women , including all four Americans, will be competing in the finals, the IOC has returned to the two-run structure. The competitors’ better run out of the two will count toward their final score (out of 100).

Given their talent — Anderson won gold in slopestyle in the 2014 Games, Jenson earned the top U.S. women’s finish at the U.S. Grand Prix at Snowmass in January, and Marino won gold in slopestyle in her first-ever Winter X-Games in 2017 while Langland did the same in big air — it’s likely all four women would have qualified for the Olympics slopestyle final.

But even 2018 gold medalist Gerard had two sub-par runs of 43.33 and 46.40 points in the men’s final before earning 87.16 in his third run, so advancing is never guaranteed for these athletes.

That’s bad news for the rest of the world, because with Anderson, Jenson, Marino and Langland all competing in the final, there’s a legitimate chance the United States could sweep the podium for only the fourth time in Olympics history.

Women’s snowboarding has been progressing fast, and to earn a medal, the riders essentially need to have a double cork 900 (two off-axis rotations while performing two-and-a-half rotations) in their trick repertoire.

Langland became the first-ever woman to throw down a cab double cork 1080 at the 2017 X Games big air competition, though it’s not guaranteed she’ll be able to do it in slopestyle, where she’ll have less amplitude and will have to set herself up perfectly on the course to nail the trick.

The American women certainly won’t just walk onto the podium, however. They’ll face stiff competition from Austria’s Anna Gasser, a favorite to medal in big air and also, potentially, in slopestyle if she can nail her double cork 1080 on the run. Canada’s Spencer O’Brien will also contend for a place on the podium.

If the American women sweep an event for the first time in Winter Olympics history, you’ll want to be watching. Tune in to the slopestyle finals starting at 9:00 p.m. ET on NBC to watch Anderson, Jenson, Marino and Langland go for gold (and silver and bronze).

Next: American Red Gerard wins men's snowboarding slopestyle final

For more from the Winter Olympics, make sure to follow FanSided and stay tuned to our Olympics hub for all the latest news and results.