Pyeongchang, South Korea, to others this may be a stupid location. Yet for me it was one of the most important places, where my boyfriend would be competing in the slopestyle final for snowboarding. Who is my boyfriend you may ask? Well he's the only American in the top 12, so figure it out for yourself. It's the one and only Redmond Gerard. I know it's very surprising that such a guy can have a girl, but I am in fact living and in love with him.
Red and I go back a ways, we met through mutual friends on the slopes. We met through his friend Chris Corning, who also happens to board professionally and is also in the Olympics too. We met back in 2012 when he moved to Colorado, he was already apart of the boarding scene and I watched my best friend Chris work his way to get there too. We actually met after one of their training camps for the youth team. I had gone with Chris' parents to pick him up, and sure enough Red was going to catch a ride with us back home. Originally I didn't understand why, but with the amount of siblings he had it ended up making total sense. After that we became three peas in a pod, and were unseperable. I just about attended every competition of theirs, or would livestream it back home in Colorado. It wasn't until almost a year ago that I got into a relationship with Red. Chris had been nagging me for the longest time about my crush on him, and how I should just tell him how I felt. The thing with Chris was that he was always like a brother to me, and supported me even when he was going through his own crap. Red had asked me out after one of his slopestyle competitions, when he got first. When we had brought up our old memories and why he asked me out, he had said he only had the confidence to ask because he still hadn't come down from his adrenaline rush.
Here I am now, watching the slopestyle finals with Chris and Kyle. All three of us were so nervous for him, our hearts felt like they were beating lightning fast. All of the boarders that has made it into the finals were super talented. I mean he was going up against Mark, Staale, Marcus, Tyler, Seb, and a few others. They were all pretty big names in the snowboarding scene, and have been competing a lot longer than Red has. It was a pretty windy day, which was showing to be a problem for Red as he hadn't landed either of his first two runs. His family was right with us and many of them probably couldn't even tell you if Red even came down the slope course yet. It was all going to come down to his last run, his standing wasn't looking good but nobody had wanted to rule out a miracle just yet. It was no surprise when Mark destroyed his runs and was holding first at the given moment, although several boarders had yet to go. Unfortunately for Mark, Max had landed a better run and was in gold medal position. All that was left to go now was my boy Red. I held on tightly to my bestfriends Chris and Kyle watching so intently at the slope course, praying that he would at least land one of his runs. I could tell even before Red went down the slope he was going to hold nothing back, it was all or nothing.
The moments before he went down the final slope to end were intense and almost dead silent. When he finally flew through the air for his last jump I followed his every movement. Next thing I saw, he had cleanly stomped his run and boy was I stoked for him. His momentum was going so fast he had to tip over and slow it down by sliding on his stomach, I couldn't help but laugh a little. We all watched him get up and undo his bindings then run over to Staale, who was his only friend that was competing in the final. If he had a good enough score, he would actually knock out his friend from the bronze medal zone. Shortly after he received his score of an 87.16, which was good enough for the gold medal. He hugged Staale tightly after he had a small moment of realization that he placed on the podium. He came over with Staale to Kyle, Chris, and I and gave us all hugs thanking us for supporting him.
After we cleared out of the slope center we headed back to the Olympic village to all hang together. On the way back Red described his day to us in detail. "So I started the morning by Kyle waking me up, which was already a little messed up since I was supposed to have already been up. It wasn't that big of a deal." he said like the slightly irresponsible teenager he is. "Then I had to borrow his coat, because somewhere along the line I lost mine. I still don't know where it is. Oh and Kyle here's your coat back." he was saying while taking off his coat, or better yet Kyles coat. I couldn't help but laugh at my boyfriends foolishness. "We got here in the morning as you guys all saw, got my good luck kiss and threw it down and got it done." he said like his typical mellow self. When he said that Chris laughed at me and had to point out the fact that I was blushing, I just punched him in the arm lightly and shook my head. Red wrapped his arm around me and whispered in my ear, "I love that I can make you blush so easily." while laughing at the end. These boys were driving me insane, but in the best ways possible.
Finally after an hour long drive full of laughs and stories we made it back to the village. We all piled out of the bus and headed inside, since the medal ceremony wasn't until the night. Red walked a little slower than the rest heading back inside and pulled me behind with him. "Thank you so much for coming, it means the world to me. I love you so much and how you get along with the boys so well." he said while pulling me into a hug when he was done talking. I kissed his lips and pulled away just staring into his beautiful blue eyes. We then jogged to catch up with the rest of our group, which looked more like a mob of people. The day was filled with fun up until the medal ceremony.
At the medal ceremony it was a blast, with the amount of people that were here just to watch Red receive his medal. His whole family was here along with the whole usa boarding crew, not to forget to mention Staale Sandbech. Seeing him step up and get the gold medal put around his neck was indescribable, he looked so happy and I was so proud of him for all he has done. He walked off the stage back to us all, "This medal is so heavy, I almost thought my neck was going to break." he said jokingly to all of us. Before focusing on Red, I gave Staale a hug, he looked a little down not getting a medal this time around. He hugged back, "That boy is a keeper, don't you let him go now. Just enjoy the ride with him. If you ever need anything let me know." he told me while embracing our hug. I realized why he gets called the snowboarding dad at all the competitions the boys go to. Staale was proud of Red, and so was everyone else around. In the end I had the better title than Reds olympic gold, and that was I could proudly call him mine.
