Lindsay H. Jones and Rachel Axon

USA TODAY Sports

Wise scored a 92 on his first run%2C putting him in first

On his second run%2C Wise hit the lip of the pipe on his first hit

Canadian Justin Dorey fell midway through his run%2C clinching gold for Wise

For a guy who had managed to so gracefully hurl his body up and off the 22-foot wall of a halfpipe, flipping twice and while spinning his way down, David Wise's last move of the night was hardly the smoothest.

But boy if it wasn't the sweetest.

Wise swung his body over a waist-high fence and went running on the slushy, icy snow until he found his wife, Lexi. He scooped her up and spun her around before he lost his balance, and they tumbled to the snow. They laughed and laughed, and shared one more embrace before Wise was whisked away to attend to his rigid schedule to which all gold medalists must adhere.

The couple, married long enough to no longer be considered newlyweds, but in love enough to still act like them, had been separated so much while here that Lexi had to find a go-between to get a special present to David. It was a small black rock – nothing special to most of us, but the most special gift of all to him.

Throughout their relationship, David has brought Lexi home a piece of each place he has visited on his skiing travels. Once she arrived here in Sochi to watch him compete in his first Olympics, she brought him a piece of Reno, their hometown.

David slipped the stone into his pocket and went and won himself the first gold medal in freeski halfpipe.

"We're going to celebrate our blessings. We're super thankful," Lexi Wise said.

At 23, Wise is still so young in his freeskiing career, but here at the Sochi Games, he's the old soul on the U.S. Freeskiing Team. He's the one with a wife and a daughter, the one who has been dominating the sport for several years, with back-to-back-to-back X Games titles, a world championship, and now Olympic gold, won here at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park Tuesday in the first true snowstorm of the Games.

Wise intended to unveil a new trick in the Olympics, part of his endless quest to advance the sport by inventing and then mastering something no one had ever tried to do.

But the heavy, wet snow that began falling mid-afternoon slowed down the halfpipe so much that skiers were struggling to build enough speed to pull off their regular routines, let alone something groundbreaking.

In the first run of finals, Wise went with a run that included two double corks, including his signature trick, the rightside double-cork 1260, the move that helped him pull away from his rivals the past few seasons.

Wise received a score of 92 on that run, and it was good enough to hold up. "Unfortunately conditions tonight didn't allow me to do my best run I wanted to do, but to still do both double corks, even though it was slow, and kind of a tough night, was a huge accomplishment for me," Wise said.

Canada's Mike Riddle took silver, and France's Kevin Rolland took bronze.

It was the 20th medal for the U.S., which tied the Netherlands atop the overall medal count. Earlier in the day, Alex Deibold won bronze in men's snowboardcross. The U.S. team has won at least one medal every day.

As the reality hit Lexi Wise and the family contingent that he would live up to his billing as the event's gold medal favorite, the group broke out in chants of Wise's name and of USA. As Wise took the top step of the podium, they began signing the "Star Spangled Banner."

Only one person was missing – Nayeli Wise, David and Lexi's two-year-old daughter. Her mother had blown up a photograph of the toddler's face and mounted it on a tongue depressor. Though Lexi was likely watching with family members back home in Reno, where her father's race occurred around breakfast time, to Wise it was almost like she was there.

It wouldn't have been complete without her.

"I think being a good husband and father is more important than to be a great skier. So I kind of focus on that, and the pressure is off," Wise said. "I can come out here, do what I love to do and they'll support me when I'm doing what I love."

American Aaron Blunck, a 17-year-old from Crested Butte, Colo., advanced to the final and finished seventh. The other two Americans, also Colorado teenagers Torin Yater-Wallace and Lyman Currier, crashed in both of qualifying runs and did not advance. Currier suffered a torn ACL on his second run.