Salem, Ore., rider Michele Taggart claimed the first gold medal of the Games after surviving a scare on her second run in the halfpipe.

	Shannon Dunn led for most of the morning but had to settle for Halfpipe silver.

"I just wanted to make it a little more dramatic, put the pressure on myself," the 28-year-old joked about her second-run fall. "I'm just kidding. I hate pressure. I'm glad I dealt with it."

Dealt with it is an understatement, for it was actually Olympic halfpipe bronze medalist Shannon Dunn who led the contest throughout the morning, dropping to second place in the final run.

Orange, Calif., snowboarder and skateboarder Cara-Beth Burnside took home the bronze.

After leading the standings for two of the three runs, was Dunn satisfied to walk away with silver?

"That's the way a contest works, so you've got to be happy with what you get," she said. "It's a bummer that I kind of sketched, but that's life."

She blamed poor visibility for her slip in the final run. Early sunshine turned to flat skies during the event.

"I just caught my edge, and I kind of couldn't see the wall that well," she said. "I definitely think (visibility) had a big role to play."

Taggart, a former North American Halfpipe Champion and World Overall Champion, thought she got lucky with the win.

"It was hard to ride this pipe, because it was really inconsistent, and it had lots of variables. So it was just kind of 'hold on and hope for the best.' "

It doesn't get any better than a gold medal.