Showboating costs snowboarder gold
BARDONECCHIA, Italy — Lindsey Jacobellis won over legions of fans and promoters to the new Olympic sport of snowboardcross.
What she didn't do was win the race. She lost it — in astonishing fashion — a jaw-dropping collapse that will go down as one of the most unforgettable moments of the 2006 Winter Games.
The famous, articulate, endorsement-rich 20-year-old American pulled a flamboyant — but unnecessary — "backside method grab" on the second-to-last jump on the course then crashed. Members of the U.S. team at the finish line and American flag-waving fans in the grandstand, who thought a gold medal victory was a certainty, were left to gasp in open-mouthed amazement.
Everyone else shouted anxiously as Jacobellis scrambled to get up and save her run, only to be passed by Swiss boarder Tanja Frieden, who had fallen far behind while tangling with another rider higher up on course.
"I was having fun," Jacobellis said. "Snowboarding is fun. I was ahead. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the crowd. I messed up. Oh well, it happens."
Jacobellis' fall set up an ecstatic embrace between Frieden and her American boyfriend, Seth Wescott, who had won gold in the men's snowboardcross debut just a day earlier.
"We had always been saying, 'Hey, let's have a podium together,' but we never got to do it," Frieden said.
"To do it here is wicked cool," she said, using an expression from her boyfriend's home state of Maine.
Jacobellis could only slide to a stop a few feet away from the finish line celebration, putting her hands on her knees, then shrugging briefly.
Frieden couldn't help but recall the time she relaxed on the final stretch of a past X-Games race, only to be beaten at the line by Jacobellis.
"We all learned in other races that it's never finished until it's finished," Frieden said. "One day it's me, one days it's her. ... That's the game."
Jacobellis stirred matters even more with her immediate post-race comments. Exuding an uncommonly cool composure, she started putting a defensive spin on her crash.
She initially denied showboating. She talked about being troubled by the wind. She talked about having carried so much speed into the jump and soaring so high because she did not know she had a big lead and believed other riders were right on her tail.
Hours later, after U.S. snowboarding coach Peter Foley concluded from a series of Associated Press photographs that Jacobellis was "styling" unnecessarily, Jacobellis started to come clean, saying she had gotten caught up in the moment as she approached the cheering crowd on the final straight.
"You have mixed emotions about it," Foley said. "It does seem like it's a pretty big deal. ... A lot people feel like maybe it's even good and some people are so mad at Lindsey for not winning."
Jacobellis was having a remarkable day before that final mistake. She was nearly taken down when France's Karine Ruby collided with her in an earlier heat race, but Jacobellis remarkably kept her balance and advanced to the semifinals. She executed an exciting midcourse pass to win that heat, putting her in a finals race that will go down as one of the highlights of the 2006 Winter Games.
Jacobellis said she intends to compete at least through the next Winter Games in Vancouver, which could make for obvious story lines about the chance for redemption.
And even though gave she away the gold on Friday, her silver remained as evidence of her otherwise sensational performance in a sport that dazzled the crowd.
"I just wanted to have a great experience and something to always remember," Jacobellis said.
She got that, all right, as did many of those who were on hand to see it.
