Snowboarding shines, New Zealand gets 1st Winter Games win

By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer

ZHANGJIAKOU, China (AP) — Zoi Sadowski Synnott captured New Zealand’s first gold medal in Winter Olympic history by winning the title in women’s slopestyle. The 20-year-old was one of the few to put down a clean run on a supersized course where hardpacked snow and bone-cold wind chills made things difficult on all 12 finalists. That included two-time defending champion Jamie Anderson, who finished ninth. Sadowski Synnott went into her last of three runs trailing American Julia Marino but came up big. She landed a double-cork 1080 on the second jump. And then she repeated the double cork in a different direction the way she did in her victory at the Winter X Games last month when she became the first woman to pull it off.