U.S. snowboarding slopestyle gold medalist Sage Kotsenburg, right, celebrates as silver medalist Staale Sandbech of Norway looks on. Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

SOCHI, Russia — A few hours after snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg won the first 2014 Winter Olympics gold medal for the U.S., in the first event of these games (in the debut of slopestyle, no less) the shaggy-haired 20-year-old drove down to the Black Sea to explain to reporters what had just happened.

Kotsenburg was beaming but still a bit bewildered himself, and — in a poetic reminder of the collisions of culture that the Olympics provide — the dialogue that transpired at the winner’s press conference set up a linguistic labyrinth for Russian interpreters attempting to keep up with Kotsenburg’s technical lingo peppered with snowboarder slang.

He said he hadn’t even planned his final run until about 10 minutes before he dropped in, when he grabbed a cell phone out of his wax technician’s backpack and called his brother, Blaze Kotsenburg, to run an idea by him.

When the phone rang, Sage Kotsenburg recounted, his brother was in Park City, Utah, watching his event via live stream with a throng of friends.

“He was like, ‘Whaaaaaaat? Everybody be quiet. I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you,’” Kotsenburg said.

When Kotsenburg told his brother he was thinking of doing a backside 1620 Japan (which entails rotating 4 1/2 times) even though he had never done the trick in his life, his big brother replied, “Really? Send it, I guess. Might as well. You’re at the Olympics.’”

So Kotsenburg did — but only after landing a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down, half-cab layback slide off the cannon back 180 out, cab double cork 1260 holy crail, frontside 1080 off the toes rocket air.

The judges understood it.

Kotsenburg’s effort was rewarded with 93.50 points — good for the gold — 1.75 points ahead of silver medalist Staale Sandbech of Norway and 4.75 points ahead of pre-Olympic favorite Mark McMorris of Canada, who took bronze despite fracturing a rib less than two weeks ago.