PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Red Gerard and his brothers built their own snowboarding features park in the backyard of their Colorado home as kids, one that provided them a gateway into a sport that is an equal mix of technical precision and daring creativity.

Halfway across the world from his makeshift beginnings, the teenager made the Olympic stage look like just another afternoon back in Silverthorne, Colorado.

The 17-year-old won gold in men’s slopestyle snowboarding on Sunday, drilling his final run to put up a score of 87.16, good enough to edge Canadians Max Parrot and Mark McMorris and give the United States its first gold medal at the Pyeongchang Games.

“It’s a little bit hard to believe, that’s for sure,” Gerard said. “I’m just absolutely just mind-blown. I can’t believe everything worked out.”

Gerard stumbled his way through his opening two runs at tricky, windy and sun-splashed Phoenix Snow Park. It hardly mattered.

He found the line and the rhythm he was missing his third time down the mountain, using some of the techniques he first learned in his backyard to navigate the series of rails at the top before soaring through the moonscape at the bottom.

“I think I was just a little bit nervous (at first),” Gerard said. “I was just like, ‘I came all the way out here, I was just trying to land a run most of all.’”

He did not just land it, he stomped it, finishing with a backside triple cork — three twists and a flip — to the delight of his father, Conrad, and the other 17 family members and friends who followed him to South Korea.

“I don’t understand all the tricks he does,” Conrad Gerard said. “I asked my boys, was that good? They said, ‘Yeah, it’s good.’”

And ultimately golden.

Gerard exulted in the moment as he took a few minutes to chat with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

“(Bach) was like, ‘What were you thinking during all those spins?’” Gerard said. “And I was like, ‘I just want to land a run, that’s about it.’ He was kind of joking around.”

Gerard, who lived in the Cleveland area early in his life before his family moved to Colorado when he was 7, stood at the bottom of the hill to see if anyone in the rest of the field could catch him.

They could not. Not this time.

Dutch sweep speedskating

Carlijn Achtereekte of the Netherlands upset her more-heralded teammate, Ireen Wust, and led a 1-2-3 sweep by the powerful Dutch team in the 3,000-meter women’s speedskating at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Saturday.

Achtereekte posted a time of 3:59.21. Wust then bettered that pace at every checkpoint, until the last, when she came up 0.08 seconds short. Antoinette de Jong won bronze.

Achtereekte, 28, is a first-time Olympian, while Wust has won four gold medals in Turin, Vancouver and Sochi.

Perfect shooting yields gold

Laura Dahlmeier of Germany, who startled the biathlon world by winning five of six gold medals at last year’s world championships, has started one-for-one at the Olympics, winning the sprint event Saturday.

Dahlmeier, 24, did not miss a shot, the only one of the top finishers to shoot clean. Marte Olsbu of Norway claimed the silver medal, and Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic took bronze.

Home team wins first medal

To the delight of the roaring crowd, Lim Hyo-jun won host South Korea’s first gold medal of the games in men’s 1,500-meter short-track speedskating. Staying out of trouble in an unwieldy nine-man field, 21-year-old Lim took the lead with three laps to go.

Mixed results for U.S. curlers

The U.S. mixed doubles curling team began Saturday with a loss, 6-4, to China. But in the evening session, the brother-sister combo of Matt and Becca Hamilton stomped Norway, 10-3. The Americans are now 2-4 in pool play and are set to finish against Finland on Sunday.

Canada leads team figure skating event

Canada leads the Olympic team figure skating event heading into the final day, offsetting a record women’s short program by two-time world champion Evgenia Medvedeva by winning the ice dance short and pairs free skate.

The Canadians used a flowing routine by Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford in the free skate to extend their lead over the Russians. Earlier, 2010 Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the ice dance.

That leaves Canada with 45 points to 39 for the Russians, who slipped further behind when Italy’s Valentina Marchei and Ondrej Hotarek were a surprising second in pairs. The Italians trail the United States by a single point, 36-35, heading into Monday’s free skates in the other three disciplines.

Americans Alexa Scimeca-Knierim and Chris Knierim were fourth.

Wi-Fi ‘attack’ causes outage

An International Olympic Committee official has used the word “attack” to describe an outage that hit the internet and Wi-Fi systems of the Pyeongchang Olympics just minutes before the opening ceremony. The network at some venues was disabled for several hours.

Organizers initially declined to use the charged word. IOC spokesman Mark Adams is now calling it an attack but says “the best industry practice is you don’t talk about an attack at this stage.”

Adams said “we’re not going to comment on the issue because it’s an issue we’re dealing with. We wouldn’t start giving you the details of an investigation before it’s come to an end.” He described the Olympic systems as “secure.”