<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"&lt;p&gt;               &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) - Sage Kotsenburg figures it's been nine or 10 years since he won a slopestyle contest.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; What a time to end that drought.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; The man they call ''Second-Run Sage'' threw down his winning score of 95.4 on the first run Saturday and wrapped up his spot on the U.S. Olympic team with a long-awaited victory in the season's last qualifying event.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; ''I just went out, I was like, `I don't care if I do go or if I don't,''' said the 20-year-old from Park City, Utah. ''I wanted to leave the politics and statistics aside and just go snowboarding. That's what we're here for, not for a points race.''    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; He'll be in Sochi with Shaun White, who wrapped up his slopestyle spot Thursday and took the day off. White is expected to ride Sunday in the halfpipe contest, where he still needs a top result to guarantee himself a chance at winning a third-place medal.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Jamie Anderson won the women's contest, making it 3-for-3 this week in Mammoth. She had secured her Olympic spot with her two victories Thursday and said she's been bombarded by champagne toasts ever since.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; ''It's special to come together for the Olympics because of how much love you get for your country,'' said Anderson, who will head to Sochi as the gold-medal favorite. ''You're representing your nation. It's something I've never done before.''    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Slopestyle is making its Olympic debut in Russia and the organizers there can only hope for as good a week as the U.S. riders had in Mammoth.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; There were sunny skies and fast conditions for all the contests, a marked change from last month in Colorado, where a qualifier in Copper Mountain was bland because of bad weather and another in Breckenridge got snowed out.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; It made for a jam-packed week with an extra qualifying event added.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Kotsenburg, who had two second-place finishes heading into Saturday, said there were so many scenarios swirling about that he finally just stopped worrying about it.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; ''That's when I ride my best anyway, is when I'm having fun,'' he said.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; The big jumps on his winning run included a frontside 900 and a double-flipping 1260.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; With the big score already secured, he tried a new grab on run No. 2 - one he calls the ''Holy Crail.'' But he couldn't pull it off.    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; ''It's so gnarly,'' he said. ''You get all pretzeled up and you spin into a vortex and don't really know what's going on. ... I tried whipping it out here because I'd love to try it in Russia.''    &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Men's slopestyle starts Feb. 6, day before the Opening Ceremony.        &lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/olympics/2014/01/18/sage-kotsenburg-slopestyle-sochi-olympics>