Winter Olympics: Women’s Snowboard Cross
Sometimes, there are second chances in life. And Lindsey Jacobellis is about to get one of them.
After a late start due to bad weather and fog at Cypress Mountain north of Vancouver, the Women’s Snowboard Cross—with the too-cool moniker of SBX—is up next on my Olympic schedule.
Though games officials had to cancel all snowboard standing-room-only tickets due to muddy ground conditions, the weather is beautiful. It’s a cold, clear day, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and Jacobellis is hoping this will be her moment. She infamously lost the gold medal—and it was hers to lose—at the 2006 Olympics when she crashed on the last jump after pulling a trick instead of racing to the finish. She scrambled to her feet to win the silver. But she’s the most successful cross rider—male or female—in the world with 20 career wins and the World Cup title to her name.
“I want to go out there and win every time,” she said in the week before the games. “I know that doesn’t happen, but I know I have the ability and it’s a new year and it’s going to be a new day. And it’s going to be my mom’s birthday, so I hope I’ll bring her a good present.”
As with many other events, these games—most tragically in luge—the issue of course access leading up to the games has been raised. But Jacobellis was unruffled going into the competition.
“They can test the course. They can find out what’s not working and risk their bodies,” she said of the Canadians. “Snowboard cross can be very unpredictable.”
The athletes each race two time-trial runs to qualify for the quarterfinals, which are about to begin. Course officials repaint the blue course lines and green finish line with spray cans.
And soon enough, the first heat is off. We watch them on the big screen from the grandstand and media area since the early part of the course is too far off in the distance to see. Suddenly, riders appear as if leaping in from stage left. Seeing the first few boarders soar in the distance puts a huge smile on my face. At moments they look like they are flying, and perhaps they are.
The first two heats go by without event, but in Heat 3, Maelle Ricker of Canada inspires the crowd to stomp their feet. The silver metal bleachers shake with each stomping foot, jostling my fingers as I try to write.
A little boy who looks about 3 feet tall and 5 years old yells, “Ma-elle! Ma-elle!” The crowd doesn’t let up for a bit. When Ricker pops up over the hill into visible sight, the audience leaps to their feet. She finishes first to advance to the semifinals, which pleases the Canadian super-fans.
Heat 4 is up next with Team USA’s Lindsey Jacobellis. They’re off and Jacobellis takes an early lead. She gets a phenomenal amount of height on her second to last jump and surfs across the finish in first place to advance to the semifinals.
As we wait for the semis to start, AC/DC’s “TNT” explodes over the loudspeaker. For the first time at the games, I think the venue music actually suits the event. I happen to be in an ‘80s cover band that plays “TNT,” so I’m bopping along. Unless rockers don’t bop—in which case, I’m rockin’ out. Oi! Oi! Oi!
Then the crowd cam swoops by and everyone stands and shakes their flags—mostly Canadian, some American, some European.
The first heat of the semifinals is up. The crowd is clinking and clanking their cowbells and noisemakers. Lots of ooohs and ahhhs as the riders bobble along the course. Riders from Norway and Switzerland advance to the final.
Now it’s time for the second and final heat. Jacobellis wears a red bib, but mere seconds into race, she bobbles after a jump and nips a crossing gate. And just like that, she is disqualified. She’ll go on to the small final that determines fifth through eighth places. There will be no gold for Jacobellis, but she takes it in stride:
“I feel OK though. Sometimes, you can’t control the things that you want to, and that’s just how it goes in boardercross sometimes. I’ve had a great career in it, and I’ve been really dominant in it. Then sometimes I fall into funks where things like that happen.”
Canada’s Ricker, who is the current World Cup leader, gets the crowd to their feet and finishes in first to advance to the final.
The Americans in the crowd stop shaking their flags, and I feel their disappointment too. I was hoping Jacobellis would win gold like her men’s teammate Seth Wescott. But she’ll have no such gift for her mother’s birthday.
In the small final, Jacobellis takes an early lead out of the gate wearing a blue bib. She flies down the course, and as she does, I imagine what might have been had she not been disqualified from the final. It’s a beautiful ride—a swansong in my overactive imagination—with Jacobellis cruising across the finish in first place. In reality, it is a beautiful ride and she does finish first, but in the small final that puts her in fifth place overall.
“I was just having fun,” she says. “I knew, since everybody was waiting for me to come down, they’d be watching, so I figured I’d have some fun and show them that I still have a deep passion for the sport, and that if you haven’t snowboarded before, maybe you should, because it’s pretty fun.”
As we wait for the big final to start, Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” plays in the grandstand. It’s another song I perform with my band, and I think, “SBX is my kind of sport.”
The final is up. Once again the crowd loses their minds for Canada’s Ricker. As they do, I silently hope she wins for their sake. The riders take off and Ricker takes a huge lead. I can’t hear the announcers over the screaming, clanking and stomping of the crowd.
When Ricker appears over the hill leading the other riders, people start jumping up and down. She slides across the finish with a hefty lead, and the flags shake all around me. The screaming, the clanking, the sounds of victory. France takes second and Switzerland third.
Canada’s second gold medal of the games leaves the fans hoarse. Today, they will own the podium, while Olympic gold eludes Jacobellis once more.
So much for second chances.
This post originally appeared in the Washington Times Communities on Feb. 16, 2010
