2018 Winter Olympics: No medal for Lindsey Jacobellis, but she's best her sport has seen
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Quick, name the women’s snowboardcross gold medalist from Torino.
If you’re not Swiss or not Tanja Frieden, you’re going to have a difficult time. But it’s likely you know Lindsey Jacobellis, the silver medalist whose split-second decision late in the race not only cost her the win but forever kept her in a time capsule in our public conscience.
A dozen years later, she was back in an Olympic final, this time finishing fourth at Phoenix Snow Park on Friday.
She’s the most accomplished woman in her sport, but Jacobellis finds herself still living in the shadow of a race she didn’t win when she was 20. And that’s a shame.
“It’s definitely brought more attention to the sport,” she said. “How often do you remember the second-place medalist?”
The notoriety of that race — where Jacobellis held the lead late before falling performing a method on the last jump — revives itself every four years, like a quadrennial ghost to haunt Jacobellis.
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It’s a double-edged sword for a sport that doesn’t get much mainstream attention outside the Olympics, where it has been contested since 2006.
“When I tell people what I do, the first thing they say is that the sport where the girl threw away the gold medal?” said Faye Gulini, Jacobellis’ U.S. teammate. “And I’m like, at least you know what I do, because they either know or they don’t know anything. She’s pioneered the sport. She’s been doing it for 20 years. She’s a really talented snowboarder.”
That’s what gets lost every four years — Jacobellis is the best her sport has seen.
Jacobellis has won five FIS World Championships spanning from her first in 2005 to her most recent last year. She has 10 X Games medals.
In 84 World Cup starts, she has 29 wins and 49 podiums. That’s more than the rest of the field in the Olympic final combined, which has 22 among the other five riders.
Yet we focus on the Olympic gold that’s missing.
“It’s definitely the only thing I haven’t won. But it’s not something that’s going to define me,” Jacobellis said.
“It’s not how you should be defined because there’s plenty of athletes that have never acquired that Olympic gold but still keep qualifying and still keep coming back because what are they truly, they’re Olympic contenders, they’re Olympic athletes and they’re role models and someone who wants to give back into the sport.”
On Friday, Jacobellis did all she could to medal here.
A halfpipe start to the course favored Jacobellis — who used to compete in that event — and allowed her to take an early lead in the final. But that also allowed other riders to draft off her.
Gold medalist Michela Moioli of Italy passed her going into the third turn. And Jacobellis went wide on the last banked turn, sending her outside going into the final straightaway.
Coming off the last jump, she had to avoid France’s Chloe Trespeuch and finished .03 seconds behind the Czech Republic’s Eva Samkova.
“She really rode a good race. She didn’t make mistakes,” said Peter Foley, the U.S. boardercross coach. “She’s been feeling crazy pressure, and I was amazed that she was able to focus in well on doing all the right things on the course.”
Jacobellis did that nursing a sore knee, one which had three surgeries before Sochi, that she reaggravated in practice this week. At 32, those injuries are part of the wear and tear of the sport.
Jacobellis was the oldest rider in the final, and silver medalist Julia Pereira de Sousa Maibleau is half her age.
“It’s the winner of this day, and it doesn’t define me as an athlete,” she said. “I’ve been doing this sport for 20 years, and that’s a lot longer than some of these girls have been alive. It’s still cool that I’m a part of the growth in this sport.”
Part of that growth is the Supergirl Snow Pro event, an all-female event for amateurs and pros, next month.
Though Jacobellis said she doesn’t know how long she’ll continue, retiring from competition after an Olympics wouldn’t suit her, she said.
Beyond the notoriety her 2006 finish garnered for the sport, Jacobellis has said she might have retired after Torino had she won Olympic gold. Instead, she stayed and endured the quadrennial reminders of her blunder.
And the sport is better for it.
“She’s done incredible. … She’s the best at this sport,” Gulini said. “She’s the golden girl. She had one mistake and it sometimes haunts her, but I think we’re far enough out that it’s rare that it really gets brought up until the Olympics. I think she’s doing just fine despite that mistake.”