PARK CITY, Utah (REUTERS) — Ross Powers has given himself a belated birthday present by soaring high and twisting his way to victory, thus leading an American sweep at the men’s snowboarding half-pipe event.

The 1998 Olympic bronze medallist, who turned 23 on Sunday, was true to his promise to “go big” in the final.

Fourth to start in the two-run final round, Powers did enough to bag the gold on his first go, getting 46.1 points out of 50 from the judges for his high-flying twists and flips.

After his second run failed to improve on the first, Powers sat at the finish and waited it out to see if his compatriots would manage to overtake him.

When Finnish favorite Heikki Sorsa failed to overtake Powers or his compatriots Danny Kass and Jarret “J.J.” Thomas for the top three spots, the three Americans leapt and congratulated each other.

Kass, 19, also got his best of 42.5 at his first attempt, while Thomas was ninth before his second run — to the strains of Madonna’s “Material Girl” — earned him 42.1 points and kept Italian Giacomo Kratter out of the medals.

Powers, one of the highest flyers in the men’s Olympic competition, had said after the qualifying run that he planned to work to get even more air and do better turns in the finals.

He received a near-perfect score of 9.8 out of 10 points from the judge who measures rotations for his maneuvers.

Sorsa, a crowd favorite who was set apart with his spiked Mohawk hairstyle, pushed himself to the limits and got strong marks for amplitude, but failed to match his number-one morning performance and ended up in seventh place.