‘Psyched’ teen snowboarder Gerard takes first USA gold

An earthquake triggered an alert and high winds disrupted competition at the Winter Olympics on Sunday, as officials warned of a severe freeze and urged fans to wrap up warm. Temperatures are forecast to plunge to -14 degrees Celsius (6.8 Fahrenheit) on Monday. To complete the set of extreme conditions, an alert warning of a high risk of fire — given the dry, windy weather — also flashed up on mobile phones on Sunday.

Pyeongchang (South Korea) : Teenage snowboarding sensation Red Gerard nailed his last run to win the first gold for the United States at the Pyeongchang Olympics and declared: “I’m super-psyched!”

The 17-year-old landed an 87.16 point final effort in the slopestyle to snatch victory from Canadians Max Parrot, who took silver, and Mark McMorris, who picked up a second bronze after Sochi four years ago. “I was really happy when I saw I came in as first,” said Gerard. “I don’t know, silver (Parrot) had a pretty good run, I was questioning it. “But you know, judges have their own minds and I’m super-psyched!”

Gerard was off the pace after the first and second runs, before somehow summoning up an enormous last effort. “It feels incredible. I’m just really happy that I got to land a run and I’m just really excited right now,” said the Colorado native, who came fourth in the X-Games last month. Gerard tried the sport as a toddler then took it up with a passion aged eight when his family moved closer to the snow. He built his own snowboarding training ground with his brother at the back of his family home as his ambitions grew.

Meanwhile, India’s winter sports poster boy Shiva Keshavan on Sunday brought the curtains down on his over two-decade international career with a 34th-place finish in the men’s luge singles event.

Taking part in his sixth and last Olympics, Shiva produced the best timing of his campaign as he covered the 1,344 metre track in 48.900 seconds.