“Sharing the top two steps of that podium with Alex is amazing,” he said. “The reality is the other guys had the opportunity. Aaron Blunck had the opportunity. Torin Yater-Wallace had the opportunity to take that spot away from Nico, and they didn’t do it. So I’m excited for skiing to look as good as it did today.”

Their 1-2 finish certainly gave a jolt to the United States’ medal count, which through Thursday’s events stood at 21 medals over all and eight gold. With just a few days left of competition, the Americans seemed on pace to lag behind Sochi’s disappointing total of 28 medals, nine of them gold.

Still, five of the United States’ eight golds have come in halfpipe or slopestyle events. In total, snowboard and freestyle skiing accounts for 10 of the United States’ 21 medals.

“Halfpipe really caters to creativity,” Wise said. “It caters to doing things sort of differently than anybody else does. I think as Americans we have rebel in our blood.”

Wise used three different pairs of skis because he had binding problems on the first two runs, leading to wipeouts. He scored 17 on the first and 6.4 on the second before performing a near-perfect run on the third for a 97.20. He landed double corks in all four directions: front left, front right, switch backward left and switch right, which basically means he spun ridiculously high and twirled in nerve-racking succession off the halfpipe banks as if he were on a frosty trampoline.

Ferreira had a 96.4, and Porteous a 94.8 after trying a succession of moves he said he had never done before.