Seventeen-year-old Red Gerard had a rough start to his Sunday, Yahoo reports.
He’d passed out during an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Saturday night and slept through his morning alarm. When a friend finally dragged him out of bed into the world of the living, Gerard realized his jacket was missing. Running late, he borrowed a coat and bolted out the door—and then promptly won a goddamn Olympic gold medal.
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On Sunday, the Colorado teen took home the gold in slopestyle snowboarding, winning the US the first gold medal at this year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea. Gerard was awarded a combined score of 87.16 out of 100 for his three snowboarding runs, earning him first place over Canadian snowboarder Max Parrot, who got silver. Not a bad way to end a shitty morning.
When the 17-year-old saw the results, he let out a triumphant “holy fuck” yell, which snuck past NBC’s censors and into the live feed, inadvertently articulating the thoughts of viewers nationwide who were currently comparing his win to all the dumbass stuff they were doing at 17.
“I actually said going into all the contests that I’d love fourth place,” Gerard later said, after he’d exhausted himself of excited expletives. “But first place is better, I got to say.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Gerard is now the youngest American man in the past 90 years to win gold at a Winter Olympics, following 16-year-old bobsledder Billy Fiske back in 1928. Gerard celebrated his win with members of his friends and family who were waiting for him at the bottom of the slope, who had been shotgunning beers since 8:30 in the morning in anticipation of his success.
Gerard will soon be on his way back to Colorado, where he can wear his gold medal as he sneaks into IKEA or whatever normal, non-Olympian teens get up to these days. Hopefully, he gets a chance to finally sleep through his alarm, too. The kid has earned it.
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