Baumgartner, Dierdorff just miss “cross” medals

Olympic final in entertaining event provides thrills and literally spills

BONGPYEONG, SOUTH KOREA» Steamboat Springs’ Mick Dierdorff was feeling good, racing in his first Olympic snowboardcross semifinals when suddenly he was on his back.

“That was a really hard one to get up from,” said the 26-year-old part-time carpenter. “From when I was 12 years old starting this sport, I’ve always been told the race is never over. When you go down, you get back up and finish. That paid off today for sure.”

As he regained his speed, he passed some fallen riders. When he crossed the finish line, he was 28 seconds behind the leader. And he was in third, moving onto the contest’s big final alongside teammate and Olympic veteran Nick Baumgartner.

“I come across the last jump and I hear the crowds’ roar and ‘Wow, did that really just happen? Am I really third?’ A whirlwind of emotions for sure,” he said.

In a dramatic day of racing Thursday, Team USA’s snowboardcross crew — an unpretentious squad whose members credit their labors in the building trades with their success on the world’s cross courses — didn’t take home any Olympic medals. But they posted personal bests and harvested memories that will linger just as long as any shiny hardware.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a better feeling in my life,” Dierdorff said of his fifthplace finish, just behind Michigan’s Baumgartner in a climactic, crash-filled final.

France’s unbeatable Pierre Vaultier, a 29year-old who won gold in Sochi and is the reigning world champion as well as the World Cup leader, sailed to his second Olympic gold, never once chasing anyone through three heats and the final. Australia’s Jarryd Hughes, who trained with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, took silver, followed by Spaniard Regino Hernandez, who earned Spain’s third-ever Winter Olympic medal and first since the 1992 Albertville Games.

Snowboardcross arrived at the Winter Olympics in Italy in 2006 and quickly established itself as a crowd favorite. It harkens back to the oldest of winter contests: a race to the bottom. Through several jumps and banked turns, six snowboarders at a time race at top speeds down the motocross-inspired course. While there may be occasional contact, this isn’t some roller-derby with gladiators on snow. The athletes weave tight lines around each other, drafting and dodging in a strategic dance down the hill.

It was that drafting that fouled up Baumgartner in the final. The concrete pourer and father from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula gathered too much speed behind the final’s leaders and soared off a jump and cratered alongside Dierdorff. Baumgartner, whom teammates call “Baum,” scrambled to his feet and finished fourth, his best Olympic finish.

The oldest competitor in the Olympic contest, Baumgartner was already limping heading into the Olympics. In December, on his 36th birthday at a race in Austria, he crashed, fracturing vertebrae in his back and breaking a rib. He thought his quest for his third Olympics was over. But he rallied back, finishing fourth in a World Cup race in Turkey in January to qualify for the U.S team in PyeongChang. On Thursday, leaning on his 13-year-old son Landon, he was all smiles.

“We want to show the world what our sport is and how awesome it is. In a racing sport, people come to watch awesome passing and insane crashes, so I think we delivered on both of those,” he said.