2/18/2006: Hot dog
Snowboard cross is one of the best things to come to the Olympics in ages. It's like a motocross or BMX on snow, with a touch of roller derby. It's fast, unpredictable, and exciting.
Enter Lindsey Jacobellis. She worked her way through several rounds of 4-person qualifiers and ended up the only American in the final run for the women. She had a good shot at completing a USA gold sweep of the snowboard events, following Shaun White & Hannah Teiter in the men's & women's halfpipe and Seth Wescott in the men's cross.
Canada's Maelle Ricker took a bad spill early in the final - not unusual in this event - and Jacobellis had a nice lead by the halfway point. Switzerland's Tanja Frieden & Canada's Dominique Maltais had their own problems and by the final third, Jacobellis was miles ahead and the gold medal was hers, easily. All she had to do was stay upright.
About 100 yards from the finish line she looked behind her, then decided to show off a bit. She hit the final jump and while in the air she did one of those twisty things they do, grabbed her board, came down and crashed. She got up quickly but not before Frieden sailed past her and finished first.
This would only happen to an American - anyone else would stay focused on the race, and knowing they had it made, they'd make it a point to get cleanly to the bottom. But the arrogant, hot-shot attitude we breed here so easily can lead to things like this. Jacobellis will have to live with it forever.
She won the silver and that's impressive in itself, but she's facing the press with a defensive, almost angry tone and a ton of excuses. She claims she didn't realize what a big lead she had - even though she looked back and saw no one (they're usually on top of each other) - and that she was only "stabilizing" when she did her airborne dip 'n grab.. uh huh. And so she makes her second blunder. If she'd cop to it, laugh, and use the typical snowboarder's "keep it fun" attitude she could come through this unscathed, silver medal in hand, and she'd land far better commercials when all the snowflakes settle. But no, arrogance breeds arrogance, and Jacobellis gets to go home on the sore losers bus now with Michelle Kwan & Johnny Weir.. "it's not their fault" you know.
The truly pathetic part of this episode though was NBC's postscript about it, which they introduced by saying "We've always said it isn't about the medals" .. since when??!!! That's all they DO care about, it's all they show and all they talk about. Their Jacobellis piece was followed by a montage of American medal winners' winning moments so far.
Meanwhile we did see some true Olympic spirit today, when Lindsey Kildow went down the hill in the slalom portion of the women's alpine combined event. Kildow's the one who took that horrific spill the other day on the downhill event and was airlifted out to hospital. She was back on her skis two days later, finishing 8th in her race Wednesday. Today she donned her number jersey again and gave it her best for the slalom. She was still hurting too much though and fell again - luckily not nearly as hard this time - and so was disqualified from the combined event and won't be competing in the downhill portion tomorrow.
But that's ok. As far as I'm concerned she's the star of the slopes this year. She's shown the kind of determination & inspiration that hot shots like Jacobellis can only hope to strive for.. if they ever grow up enough to understand it.
Kildow has made the words "Olympic Spirit" something real and tangible again, and not just an advertising catch phrase.
