Coeur d’Alene Native Sage Kotsenburg Brings Home First Gold Medal for USA at Sochi 2014 Olympics
The USA brought their largest delegation of athletes in Olympic history to Sochi and it didn't take long to claim a gold medal. Congrats to Sage Kotsenburg for going HUGE in the inaugural snowboard slopestyle event at the Winter Olympics and bringing home the first place hardware!
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho native (who resides in Park City, Utah now) took the lead after his first of two runs in the event and never looked back. The 20 year old tweeted before the event, "Whoa how random is this I made finals at the Olympics!!!" and then went out and threw a Cab Double Cork 1260 with his signature Holy Crail grab and a Back 1620 Japan Air. How big was that Backside 1620 Japan Air? According to Yahoo! Sports, Kotsenburg said ''Never even tried it before. Never, ever tried it in my life. I had no idea I was even going to do a 1620 in my run until three minutes before I dropped. It's kind of what I'm all about.''
We've all heard the cliche saying, "Go big or go home" and this dude out of the PNW went beyond big to bring home the gold. Wicked awesome.
SideNote: Alter Bridge frontman Myles Kennedy of is also from Couer d'Alene and penned a song about his hometown for the bands album "AB III."