Olympic glory again eludes Jacobellis in snowboardcross
The Denver Post Lindsey Jacobellis, the world’s best snowboardcross athlete, has won every major race in her sport except the biggest. And she was unable to fill that Olympic void Friday, missing the PyeongChang medal podium by only a fraction of a second.
In her first Olympic final since winning silver in the 2006 debut of snowboardcross in Italy, the 10-time Winter X Games medalist and five-time world champion pulled up oh-soslightly over the final jump to avoid a fallen rider. Mere feet from the finish line, maybe that cost her the 0.04 of a second she needed to earn a bronze medal.
“If I didn’t really have that, who knows? Maybe I could have sneaked in for a medal. But at the end of the day, I want to be safe and not blow my knee or get injured again,” said the 32year-old Vermont pioneer of snowboardcross who led for the first half of the dramatic final at the Games. “This is definitely the only thing I have not won, but it’s not something that’s going to define me.”
In yet another thrilling final race, America’s best hope for a women’s snowboardcross medal finished fourth — just as her American teammate, Nick Baumgartner, did Thursday. The PyeongChang Olympics mark the first time American snowboardcross athletes have failed to medal since the 2006 Games. Italy’s Michela Moioli won gold ahead of France’s Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau. The Czech Republic’s Eva Samkova, who won gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Russia, took bronze Friday, again racing with a painted mustache on her lip.
It’s rare to be consistent in Olympic snowboardcross racing. It’s a capricious sport, where any of the six-at-a-time racers can eke out a win. Of the 24 Olympic snowboardcross medals that men and women have won since 2006, only four athletes have won two. The jumps and berms in the winding Olympic courses can often overshadow even the most obvious talent. Winners often get lucky to succeed.
“I finished the best I could today,” Jacobellis said. “If we ran the race tomorrow, it could be a whole different story. It’s the winner of this day, and it doesn’t define me as an athlete. I’ve been doing this sport for 20 years, and that’s a lot longer than some of these girls have been alive.”
Jacobellis’ younger teammates, Eagle’s Meghan Tierney and three-time Olympian Faye Gulini of Utah, were unable to advance beyond Friday’s first quarterfinal heat. U.S. teammate Rosie Mancari injured her ankles in training and did not compete Friday.
Tierney, 21, got close to advancing out of her quarterfinal competition, falling on the third-to-last step-up jump. She was 11 years old when Jacobellis started coaching her at camps at Oregon’s Mount Hood, and she counts Jacobellis as a mentor.
“She’s really helped me get to where I am,” Tierney said.
Tierney remembers watching Jacobellis at Italy’s 2006 Olympics and felt a spark to race snowboards. That was the year Jacobellis earned her silver medal. Which wasn’t really a victory. She had the gold in sight when, with a long lead, she flashed a bit of style with a tweak and grab on the penultimate hit and fell. That notorious method grab has haunted her ever since. The sour silver comes up every at Olympics, and she has to answer a steady stream of questions about the now 12-year-old mistake.
“How often do you remember the second-place medalist,” she said, laughing but not really stoked to be talking about that decision to showboat she made during a race in 2006.