

Wild, an American who recently gained Russian citizenship, rolled to victory in men's snowboarding parallel giant slalom on Wednesday to win gold for his adopted country.

His triumph came just minutes after his wife raced to bronze in the women's event.

"It's incredible to win it along with Alena," Wild said. "We're together all the time. If one of us has success and one of us doesn't, it's great -- but it's not that great. For us to have success, it's truly incredible. I don't know how this happened. It's too good to be true."




Zavarzina sprinted to embrace her husband after he captured gold while a large, heavily pro-Russian crowd roared its appreciation. After the flower ceremony, Wild and his wife stood side by side holding a massive Russian flag and drinking in the moment.

It capped a career revival for Wild, who grew up in White Salmon, Wash., but applied for Russian citizenship after marrying Zavarzina in Siberia in 2011. He joined the Russian snowboarding team and praised his new country for its investment in the sport that is snowboarding's answer to Alpine skiing.


"This is what he worked for," Zavarzina said. "He went so far, so far from his hometown and he did an amazing job. He had to switch countries, switch nationalities and accept something that some would never accept."

The couple share a small apartment in Moscow -- barely 300 square feet -- but Wild has no split allegiances about who deserves credit for the medal he thought would never come while toiling away in a program that receives only a fraction of the support given to other disciplines within the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association.

"Russia is the country that's given me the opportunity to win," Wild said. "If I was still riding for (the U.S.) I'd still be back home, with a mediocre job doing something mediocre. That's not what I wanted to be."

After weeks of warm sunshine, a front that moved through Tuesday dumped a fresh batch of snow on the course at Rosa Khutor. Officials tried to protect it, but it was a bit of a hard mess in which racers struggled with their lines as they rolled from gate to gate.



"I'm so stoked to win it for Russia," he said. "Everybody thinks, 'But he's American, he's American.' It's not true. I'm not some dude in the U.S. who decides it'll be easy for me to make the Olympics in a country that doesn't do any snowboarding. ... I went the hard way."
