1. It's a cultural thing: While U.S. snowboarders are the dominant players in the halfpipe and park events like slopestyle these days, they surrendered their racing dominance to the Europeans years ago. Giant slalom is the grandfather of snowboarding -- the first event conjured up by those who wanted to bring snowboarding into the competitive fold. Snowboarding has evolved tremendously since 1998, but the traditional racing still has a huge fan base in Europe. So it really shouldn't be considered a surprise that the final top 10 finishers on Friday consisted of Germans (3) Austrians (4) Russians (2) and the lone Netherlands rider, Nicolien Sauerbreij, who won the gold.
2.Team USA: Michelle Gorgone was the only American competing in today's action. She was in solid shape after her first qualifying run, with one of the fastest morning runs of the day. At that point she looked like a medal contender, but she was one of the rare racers to have her biggest problems on the red course. During her second run she made two pretty big errors at the top and ended up qualifying in the 13th slot for the final. Ultimately, Gorgone was undone by Ekaterina llyukhina of Russia, who finished with a silver medal. "At one point coming over the pitch I thought I had her," she said to the NBC reporter. "But I made a mistake and that was the end of my day... party time."
3.A sticky situation: The weather wreaked havoc on competitors and fans Friday. Pouring rain, mushy snow and huge visibility problems were major obstacles -- mental and physical -- for the competitors. And it could be argued that the chair rides up were even worse than the speed rides down, since riders were exposed to the elements the whole time. Only the mentally tough survive this kind of event. Nicolein Saurbreij of the Netherlands had to race 10 times today to capture her gold medal. She handled it like a champion, too. She and Ekaterina llyukhina of Russia were only separated by a .02 differential after their first run. Riders in PGS go head-to-head twice in each of the final rounds. They swap courses between runs, and the gates open based on the time differential of the first run.
4.Edge wise: The blue course was giving a lot of the women problems Friday, especially at the top. That's something the men, who compete on Saturday, will be taking note of. Competitors like Selina Joerg were fighting with their edges up there. Tough conditions are harder to handle on a snowboard than skis. With both feet fixed to a single ski with only two edges, your corrective options are extremely limited. In ski racing you'll see one ski go inactive for a brief period of time while the other ski does all the work. Or you'll see two edges pitching in to accomplish the same goal. On a snowboard, all of a rider's eggs are on one edge at a time. The extra edge is also what gives skiers faster speeds.
5.The chopping block?: There' s been a lot of speculation about whether or not PGS snowboarding will actually be around when the Olympics arrive in Russia in four years. Given that llyukhina finished with a silver medal, and Ekaterina Tudegesheva performed well, the Russians may be lobbying to keep it if they think it will beef up their medal count. But the larger snowboarding world would probably like to see the slopestyle competition -- a freestyle competition with jump features and rail features -- make its way into the Olympic fold. Slopestyle has a huge fan base thanks in part to the X Games. But the IOC is always a little hesitant to add sports that require more judges. Racing is clean. There's a clear winner and loser. Sports that require interpretation are ripe for conflict.
Above: Nicolien Sauerbreij of the Netherland's rounds the corner en route to her gold medal performance in Friday's women's PGS event. Photo: Squire via Getty Images
