Cross, Men1

The boardercross event was delayed one day because fog on the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park made the course impossible to see. When it started a day later, there was still fog, which made visibility poor on the higher parts of the course. The favorites were Australian Alex Pullin, the 2011 and 2013 World Champion, and American Nate Holland, who had won the X-Games in the event only a few weeks before Sochi, but Pullin went out in the quarter-finals and Holland did not get past the first round. The 2014 World Cup leader, Italian Omar Visintin, crashed in his semi-final and was taken from the course on a stretcher.

The gold medal eventually went to Frenchman Pierre Vaultier in a huge upset. Vaultier had no major podium finishes, had spent most of the past several seasons injured, and had torn his anterior cruciate ligament only two months before the Sochi Olympics. In the final he was in a close battle with Russian crowd favorite Nikolay Olyunin but Vaultier pulled ahead off the last jump to win the gold medal, Olyunin holding on for silver. American Alex Deibold, who had been a wax technician at the 2010 Winter Olympics, survived some jostling back in the back to hang on for the bronze medal.