Gerard takes victory tour, then returns to Games

For Red Gerard, “Big Air” has less to do with vaulting himself off the snowboarding jump, more to do with the journey he’s been on since he became an Olympic gold medalist.

The Rocky River native has logged some 18,000 airline miles on a postvictory tour that took him from Pyeongchang to Los Angeles to New York, and now, back to South Korea. Ten days after his victory on the slopestyle course, Gerard returned to the snow Wednesday, where he qualified for the final of the Big Air contest — the newest, highest-flying snowboarding event at the games.

“I slowly, definitely figured out what was coming with it all,” Gerard said of the spoils of being an Olympic champion. “But I had no clue what was going to happen because I never really saw myself winning a gold medal.”

But he surrounded himself with people who did.

They had a victory plan all along.

And so, Gerard went on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show,” sat with Kelly and Ryan, interviewed on “CBS This Morning.” There was a photo shoot with “People.” A video interview with “Time.” A big spread with “Sports Illustrated.” The list goes on. His agent, Ryan Runke, can barely keep up with all the phone calls. Sponsorship and media opportunities are flooding in, and the mission isn’t so much about grabbing everything he can, but finding the right fit.

“We wanted to strike first and fast,” Runke said.

Gerard’s story is custom-made for the 5-minute TV hit. One of seven siblings, his family moved from Rocky River to the mountains of Colorado when he was young, and that’s when his snowboarding career started humming. At the slopestyle contest, his brothers brought the party to the mountain, shotgunning beers at 8:30 a.m . One sister, Tieghan, has a popular food blog that still boasts nearly double the number of Instagram followers as Red. (Though Red has spiked from 91,000 to 241,000 over the past 10 days, and the gap is closing).

There’s also the feature park he built in his backyard , where he still takes runs and where neighborhood kids are invited to come and ride any time.

Add Olympic gold to the mix and you get ... this.

While Gerard is hardly the first Olympian with a chance for multiple medals, his opportunity to cash in is different because slopestyle came on the third day of the Olympics, followed by a 10-day gap, and then qualifying for Big Air. The final is Saturday.

Gerard’s people had him strike well before the U.S. audience starts focusing on March Madness and other pursuits.