American snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg won the first gold medal of the Sochi Games Saturday, beating out Canadian favorites Maxine Parrot and Mark Morris in the Olympics’ premiere slopestyle competition.

After Shaun White pulled out of the event a few days ago, the hopes to medal in this event were grim; not to mention the fact that many of the participants had stated the danger of the treacherous course.  Earlier in the day, a female competitor had landed head first in the snow.  Kotsenburg prevailed in what proved to be a difficult fight.

Maxine Parrot landed in fifth, while Mark McMorris, who competed with a broken rib, won bronze.  Norway’s Staale Sandbech, the top scorer of the competition in qualifiers, took silver.  Kostenburg was the only American to advance to the final round of the competition after teammates Charles Guldemond and Ryan Strassel were bumped out in semi-finals earlier in the day.

The 20-year-old Utah native had to fight for his place in the medal round.  He was not among the top eight snowboarders to automatically advance to finals from Thursday’s qualifying competition.  But he steadily improved in the second round, living up to his nickname, “second-run Sage.”

Still, Kostenburg appeared surprised at the positive turn of events.  “Whoa how random is this I made finals at the Olympics!!!” he tweeted.

He was the first man up at the finals and immediately became the one to beat.  The uber laid-back snowboarder tamed the treacherous course that chased away teammate Shaun White earlier in the week and sent several other contenders to the medical tent.

While the course that features a large nesting doll, tricky rails and three jumps took out its fair share of riders, Kotsenburg kept his cool.  His blonde hair flapping out from under his helmet as he soared through the sun-splashed Caucasus Mountains, Kotsenburg looked as if he were cruising down the hill with friends.  Still, there was drama as he waited out the rest of the 12-man field.  He stood off to the side after his second run, a not quite sharp 83.25, and clapped behind a nervous smile as the rest of the field aimed for his score.

McMorris, slowed by his broken rib, couldn’t quite get there. A gold medal favorite before his injury at X Games last month, McMorris needed to scramble to get through the semifinals and his trip down the hill in the finals was solid but not spectacular.  Sandbech, who went next to last, was nearly flawless.  He was so pumped after his second run he belly-flopped onto the ground.  His 91.75 wasn’t quite good enough, leaving only Parrot in Kotsenburg’s way of gold.

Parrot dominated qualifying, posting the best score of the week.  He put together a flawless first run only to sit on the landing of his final jump. He wobbled twice on his second run.  He dropped his head when his 87.25 popped up on the scoreboard while Kotsenburg raised his arms in triumph.

Go Team USA!

As you’d expect, today’s Apple WWDC keynote drew big crowds of Apple fans eager for hardware and software news. Yet, you might be surprised that even the most devout Android enthusiasts were watching along to see what the “competition” was doing.

After two hours crammed full of products and services, we came away with some wonderful stuff. What we didn’t get, though, is a new iPhone or any promise of when one might come. And while that’s surely disappointing for some, it opens the way for a sunny Android summer, dominated largely by Samsung.

Outside of Apple, there are few handset manufacturers able to garner such stratospheric buzz for the release of a new smartphone. Part of it has to do with Android’s sheer volume of handsets (there’s almost a new one every week), but also no other company has mastered Apple’s art of building hype. Samsung, however, is on to something. While nearly every other Android device generated just a bit of Internet buzz, Samsung’s Galaxy S III stands to generate iPhone levels of excitement.

Indeed, no other Android phones thus far has produced months of speculation and rumors or this level of enthusiasm. Sure, they were popular, but the Motorola Droid, the HTC Evo, and not the first Android ever, the T-Mobile G1, didn’t exactly send people into a frenzy or the rumor mill into overtime.

Thanks to a unified brand and singular form factor across five major carriers, however, things look pretty rosy for the Galaxy S III. The handset, which features cutting edge smartphone technology and a sprinkling of Samsung’s own innovation, will have people talking this summer just as they’ve been talking about it already for several months. And with the next iPhone not expected until fall, Samsung could steal away a number of iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 owners who are off their contract and waiting to upgrade.

What’s more, as one of the biggest sponsors for the London 2012 Olympic Games, Samsung will be investing millions of dollars to show off their new baby. For consumers living in the United States, the timing of the event falls within days (or weeks) of the phone hitting various carriers. If done right, Samsung will have users flocking to their respective wireless provider, asking for “the one on TV”.

Consider also the silence from Samsung’s competitors. Of its two main competitors in the Android wars, Motorola has been nearly silent since the Droid Razr Maxx hit, and HTC hasn’t broken the bank rolling out the One X. Depending on what you believe, the One X might be the only handset worthy of knocking the crown from the Galaxy S III, but it’s only available with AT&T and Samsung is playing a better marketing game.

To really see Android’s response to Apple, we’ll have to wait for Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, which kicks off in two weeks. With Jelly Bean and a Nexus 7 tablet rumored for the three day event, Google is poised to build on Android’s momentum. At the moment, however, nothing has as much momentum right now as the Galaxy S III. And until the next iPhone is a reality, I don’t see anything coming over the horizon that looks to get in Samsung’s way right now, including offerings from other Android handset makers.