‘Old Man’ Jasey-Jay ready for big finish
EDMONTON Jasey-Jay Anderson was more or less snowboarding his age this season.
The 42-year-old would occasionally sneak out of his retail shop — Jasey-Jay Snowboards in MontTremblant, Que. — to get in some practice, show up on the World Cup tour in places like Carezza, Cortina and Lackenhof, and finish 30th, 33rd or 43rd in parallel giant slalom races.
No shame in that.
Not at his age.
But he felt something invigorating start to build a week ago in Rogla, Slovenia, where he recorded his best finish of the season, a respectable 13th.
And then on Friday in Bansko, Bulgaria, the Canadian known on the circuit as “Old Man” won a gold medal in parallel giant slalom, his forte. He’s the oldest winner in the history of snowboarding’s World Cup tour. It was his 28th victory in his 257th race, and his 62nd career podium finish.
He did it in fine style, beating 31-year-old Nevin Galmarini, the Swiss rider who leads the World Cup standings and is expected to medal in Korea.
“I’m holding on. I’m holding on,” Anderson told a reporter at the bottom of the hill.
“I feel fine, you know. I train a little bit. I work a lot, though. I’m happy when I can get out of the shop and go ride some nice turns here.”
He rides his own equipment, of course. He came off a gold medal in parallel giant slalom at Vancouver 2010 and retired up to pursue his small business dream.
He came back for Sochi in 2014 because parallel slalom and giant slalom were on the program.
And he’ll be back on the team in Pyeongchang for a historic sixth Olympics, the first Canadian winter athlete to do so.
In Korea, he’ll become the only rider to have competed in every Olympic Games since snowboarding was added to the program at Nagano in 1998.
“There is still work to do before the Games,” he said in a statement sent to Postmedia.
“Mostly the recipe is set, with only minor adjustments in the next weeks. The Games are often seen as one day but for my sixth Games, I promise it’s about the four-year journey prior to this.
“The journey is for the individual. Although hurdles are set to standardize the journey, they still remain different lessons and experiences for everyone. Mine is one of a multitude of lessons that will be digested for the rest of my life.”
Before Friday’s breakout performance, expectations for Anderson in Pyeongchang were low. He hadn’t won a World Cup race since March 2010, a month after he took Olympic gold in Vancouver. And he’s 42.
But he thinks he caught lightning in a bottle with a new board/plate system that’s been eight years in development.
“Since my return in 2011, the main focus has been gathering information and doing (research and development) accordingly. It’s tough to race without hope of accomplishing results that command respect. Unfortunately, this is the only path I could take, to follow the information.
“With enough information, I was able to create a completely distinct system from the rest of the field, which in turn gives me an advantage that is legal, and at
I didn’t know that I still have the legs for this, but I guess I still do.
42, the capacity to still perform in otherwise impossible situations.”
He said in Rogla he got “a touch on something I was really sure of.” And in difficult conditions in Bansko, where the snow was hard and bumpy, it all came together.
“I didn’t know that I still have the legs for this, but I guess I still do,” he said at the bottom of the hill in Bansko.
“Now, with the boards finally getting better, I’m looking forward to the Olympics and something big.”
Friday’s win was certainly big. The only other Canadian snowboarder to stand on the podium this season was Mark McMorris in big air. He’s writing a comeback story, too, after suffering a hellacious wreck last year that almost killed him.
Anderson is merely beating the ravages of advanced age, which can also be portrayed as the benefit of experience.
“Experience paid off, but hard work — eight years of hard work — is not to be discounted.”