Former board waxer medals
SOCHI, Russia — Alex Deibold went to the Vancouver Games four years ago, not as a snowboard cross racer, but as a wax technician. He had failed to make the U.S. Olympic team and wanted to support his teammates, so he spent his time doing the grunt work behind the scenes, a career snowboard journeyman privately vowing that the next time he would be on his own board, not waxing other people’s.
In spitting rain and heavy fog, 27-year-old Deibold, a former Branford, Conn., resident transplanted to Park City, Utah, spent Tuesday morning waxing nothing but the odds, capturing a surprise bronze medal with a late-race surge at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
“I’ve gone through surgeries and had a lot of low points,” Deibold said. “I remember what it was like to be there. So to be here and wrap the flag around myself, all that stuff doesn’t seem like a damn thing.”
Frenchman Pierre Vaultier, racing with an ACL he tore in December, won the gold and will soon be off to consult with a surgeon. Russia’s Nikolay Olyunin took the silver.
The competition — postponed for a day by fog — went without the customary seeding runs, and proved to be another round of Olympic disappointment for Nate Holland, 35, a threetime Olympian and longtime American standardbearer in the sport from Squaw Valley, Calif., who flew too high over a roller and spilled out in the first round.
“This is such a deflating moment. It’s heartbreak. I don’t know how to really explain it. It just feels like your dog died,” said Holland, who won the X Games snowboard cross event just last month. “I’ve had three Olympics now and three falls. There’s something about those five rings.”
Deibold strained his back in training on Sunday and actually was thankful that he had an extra day to recuperate. He rode well and moved into the semifinals, where he battled with friend and teammate Trevor Jacob for the third and final spot to secure a place in the final. They bumped boards at one point, flying down the 1,200-meter mountain virtually in lockstep.
“Trevor is one of the most talented snowboarders I’ve ever met. We were rubbing against each other. Rubbing is racing. I was just happy to come out on top,” Deibold said.
The sport produced its usual mayhem, as six snowboarders raced down a tortuous series of turns, rollers and jumps. World champion Alex Pullin of Australia lost his balance and didn’t get past the quarterfinals. World Cup leader Omar Visintin of Italy had the lead in his semifinal when he had a wicked, head-over-heels crash when he collided with the rider behind him and was taken from the course on a stretcher.
The visibility was terrible, the conditions challenging, but the 6-1, 190-pound Deibold said he kept his mind on nothing but racing. In March of 2011, he broke his hand in 13 places. Eleven months ago, he smashed up his collarbone, an injury that ended his season. He made it all the way back, to the summit of his career, without much in the way of sponsorship, or attention, or billing.
Four years after he was waxing boards, Alex Deibold had a bronze medal around his neck. Who was going to worry about fog and rain?