At the 2018 Winter Olympics, American Red Gerard was a 17-year-old snowboarder. He spent the night before the men’s slopestyle competition binge watching “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” In the morning, he misplaced his competition jacket and borrowed one from roommate and teammate Kyle Mack.

Already a rising star in the snowboarding world, Gerard made himself a household name when he stomped his third and final run to win the contest and claim the United States’ first gold medal of those PyeongChang Games.

He didn’t realize the gravity of what he’d accomplished.

The Olympics were only in Gerard’s peripheral view at the time. He'd grown up with four older brothers who thought competing was “lame,” so he had to prove to them that the competition circuit was worthwhile. He was content just qualifying for finals at events.

“I just wanted to land a run and kind of do my thing,” Gerard told NBCOlympics.com.

That all changed once Gerard won Olympic gold. After that, he wanted to keep winning.

“I just got the taste of winning. … The more you get the taste, the more you search for that winning feeling,” the now-25-year-old said.

For many competitive snowboarders, X Games is viewed as the pinnacle of the sport because it caters directly to the action sports community and encourages rapid innovation. An X Games title was one that Gerard wanted to win, but it eluded him for years — until he finally won it in 2024. And then again in 2025.

“It always felt like the one that’s gotten away from me every single time," he said. "To win it two years ago and then to follow it up again...it was one of my biggest accomplishments in my career.”

Heading into his third Winter Olympics, Gerard now cares a whole lot more about contest results than he did eight years in PyeongChang.

At the last Olympics in 2022, Gerard finished 4th in slopestyle (with 83.25 points), landing behind Canada's Max Parrot (90.96), China’s Su Yiming (88.70) and Canada's Mark McMorris (88.53). After the event, the head judge acknowledged that the judges had made an error when evaluating Parrot’s winning run. They hadn’t seen Parrot grab his knee instead of his board during a trick — something he should’ve been penalized for.

It isn’t clear how much of a deduction Parrot would’ve received, but with the narrow leads between each medal, it’s possible the podium results could’ve changed.

“That [Beijing result] sucks. … I wish it was just a straight-up 4th place [without any controversy] around it, because there was a lot of talk about judging and all that,” Gerard said. “I don’t look at the result as harsh. … When I look at it from what I can control and what I can do, I did exactly what I set out there to do.”

After a 20th-place finish in big air earlier at these Olympics, Gerard is set to drop in for slopestyle, his preferred event. The qualifying round, which was moved up a day due to the weather forecast, is set for Sunday, Feb. 15. The final follows three days later.

Gerard will be motivated to return to the Olympic podium for the first time since PyeongChang.

“There's definitely a little bit of, like, revenge," he said. "I guess you could call it that. … I'd love to go there and win it.”

Livigno will be a true party if Gerard finds himself on the podium in slopestyle. Forty-five members of his family traveled to watch him compete in Italy — more than double the 22 family members who famously cheered him on in 2018.

Men’s snowboard slopestyle qualifying starts at 4:15 a.m. ET on Sunday, and can be streamed live on NBCOlympics.com and Peacock.

NBCOlympics.com's Shawn Smith contributed to this story.