Day 2 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

New Zealand snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott made history on Sunday by claiming the country's first ever Winter Olympics gold medal in the women's slopestyle with an impressive final run that saw her finish with 92.88 points.

Julia Marino of the United States came second in the event, winning Team USA's first medal of Beijing 2022 with a score of 87.68. She was followed by Australia's Tess Coady, who took bronze with 84.15.

Marino and Coady embraced Synott after her landing.

Team USA's Jamie Anderson — a favorite to win — missed out on her third Olympic gold after she sat down on a landing and finished ninth.

Welcome to Day 2 of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, where gold medals are up for grabs in seven events on Sunday:

Athletes to watch:

UN Secretary-General António Guterres met with top leaders of the Chinese government amid the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, a UN spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.

Guterres spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping and State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Guterres congratulated them on the organization of the Games and voiced his appreciation for China’s cooperation with the United Nations.

They discussed vaccine inequalities and the need for a global vaccination plan, the UN said.

Guterres also encouraged a “credible” visit from the High Commissioner for Human Rights to China, including Xinjiang, where China has been accused of detaining Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.

The group also discussed climate change, global development, and regional issues, such as Afghanistan.

American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor has been cleared to compete at the Winter Olympics after testing negative for Covid-19 twice, according to the Games' official website.

Meyers Taylor, who tested positive for Covid-19 two days after arriving in Beijing, revealed the news to NBC’s Today Show on Saturday.

Meyers Taylor, 37, was put into self-isolation after testing positive, where she continued to train during the week, while awaiting to be cleared

The three-time Olympic bobsleigh medalist is scheduled to compete in the women’s monobob and two-woman bobsled events.

Having arrived in China as the most successful country in Winter Olympics history, Norway was quickly into the groove on day one of Beijing 2022.

Norway got off to a golden start on Saturday, with the Nordic country claiming two top medals to take its all-time gold tally to 134. That's 29 more than the United States, which sits in second on 105.

Norwegian Therese Johaug won the first gold of Beijing 2022 with a dominant victory in the 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race in the women's skiathlon, cruising to her first individual Olympic title in 44 minutes and 13.7 seconds.

The 33-year-old is competing in her third Games, but missed Pyeongchang 2018 due to a positive drug test in 2016.

Johaug finished just over 30 seconds ahead of the ROC's Natalia Nepryaeva, who won silver in a time of 44:43.9.

Austria's Teresa Stadlober completed the podium, securing bronze with a 44:44.2 finish.

Medal tally for Feb. 5:

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Athletes that make the podium in Beijing will have more than just a medal to take home.

All medal-winning athletes will receive a special souvenir for their achievements — featuring panda mascot Bing Dwen Dwen and a golden garland of pine, bamboo and plum flower, a traditional Chinese art motif known as the "three friends of winter."

The trio is known as such because they do not wither in winter, embodying "steadfastness, perseverance, and resilience.”

According to the official Olympic website, "Bing" has several meanings in Mandarin Chinese, though the most common is ice. The word also symbolizes purity and strength.

“Dwen Dwen” means robust and lively, and also represents children.

The Bing Dwen Dwen design — created by Cao Xue — was chosen from more than 5,800 submissions from China and 35 countries as part of a global competition arranged by the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, the official Olympic website said.

It would be hard to hold a conversation over the deafening sound of the snow machines preparing the Olympic venues northwest of Beijing. They are loud and they are everywhere, blowing snow across what will be this month's most-watched slopes.

It is almost beautiful — except that the venues are surrounded by an endless brown, dry landscape completely devoid of snow.

In an Olympic first, though not an achievement to boast about, climate variability has forced the Winter Games to be virtually 100% reliant on artificial snow — part of a trend that is taking place across winter sports venues around the world.

Just one of the 21 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics in the past 50 years will have a climate suitable for winter sports by the end of the century, a recent study found, if fossil fuel emissions remain unchecked.

As the planet warms and the weather becomes increasingly more erratic, natural snow is becoming less reliable for winter sports, which forces venues to lean more on artificial snow.

But it comes at a cost: human-made snow is incredibly resource-intensive, requiring massive amounts of energy and water to produce in a climate that's getting warmer and warmer. Elite athletes also say that the sports themselves become trickier and less safe when human-made snow is involved.

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All the Beijing snow is human-made -- a resource-intensive, 'dangerous' trend as planet warms