Jacobellis's move results in blown gold

BARDONECCHIA, Italy -- The hand shot down, and it was clear. This wasn't right, the awkward angle, the falling body, the lost gold. Because Lindsey Jacobellis had this race won. And that fact, if nothing else, could not be disputed.

The rest? That was up to whom you asked.

Jacobellis claimed the move was simply to keep her snowboard stabilized. Seth Wescott, the winner of the men's snowboardcross, wasn't so sure.

Perhaps 100 feet from the finish line, Jacobellis -- with her nearest competitor likely more than 200 feet behind -- hit the second-to-last jump on the Bardonecchia course. It was, really, just a victory lap, as she surged toward the gold medal in the inaugural women's snowboardcross. She sailed over the jump, her left hand reaching down between her legs to grab the board in a move, usually limited to freestyle snowboarding, known as a backside method grab. It started out looking great, a little bit of style added to the end of a spectacular run down the course, one that exhausted her, crushing her legs, and sending blood to her mouth.

That's when she lost it, the board falling cockeyed, sending her tumbling to the ground. She did a backflip, then a 360 in the snow. It was then, as she found her bearings, steadied her feet on her board, and stood upright, that Switzerland's Tanja Frieden soared past her. Jacobellis had left behind gold, and would be going home with only silver.

''She definitely tweaked it a little harder than she needed to," US snowboardcross coach Peter Foley said. ''If she saw it, she'd say, 'Oh, yeah, that's a little much.' "

Foley refused to go so far as to condemn his pupil for showboating on the biggest stage of her career. It is, after all, snowboarding. That's the free spirit the sport is known for, the ethos that defines the discipline. But, at the same time, world champion Jacobellis -- who also attempted to make the Olympic halfpipe team -- was defending the move, repeating the same line about stabilizing her board through the media crush after the race and the press conference. Though, about two hours later, in a teleconference with the media, she admitted it wasn't the best choice of moves, slightly backing off her rigid stance. She was, maybe, just having a little fun.

''Towards the bottom, I've been having trouble with that jump all day," said the 20-year-old from Stratton, Vt. ''The wind's just been catching me weird. I tried grabbing all different sorts of grabs to see which one would work, just to try to stabilize myself in the air. But it didn't work.

''[Grabbing the board] helps stabilize you in the air because you're going so fast. It's not like a freestyle jump, where you're trying to create style. You're just trying to create stability because you're moving at a fast rate. There's a bunch of people behind you, so the stronger you can be in the air, the better it is."

Except for one thing. While Jacobellis had been grabbing her board during the various heats, the grab she used at the end of the final run was a more unusual, more difficult one than those she had attempted earlier. Instead of putting her hand on the front of her board, as she had done numerous times, her hand went to the middle, behind her front leg.

A difficult maneuver, but she's one of the best in the world. She was the snowboarder who, in the quarterfinal, had righted herself after a near collision with Frenchwoman Karine Ruby. She didn't look primed for a fall, especially not with the end in sight, with no other boarders even close.

''It's boardercross, and I think we all learned in other races that it's never finished before it's finished," Frieden said. ''What finally happened in the heat can be anything. There's a good portion of luck with it . . . I don't feel kind of sad or bad about [winning the gold]. One day it's me, one day it's [Jacobellis], one day it's [Canada's Dominique Maltais]."

After Jacobellis indicated the jump in question had been problematic for her throughout the day, both the gold medalist, Frieden, and the bronze winner, Maltais, denied having any trouble with that area of the course. Other areas, sure, as Maltais flew off the run near the top, slamming into the netting by the side and appearing bound for a hospital before getting up and finishing third. (Of course, the bronze was only waiting for her because the fourth member of the final run, Canadian Maelle Ricker, the fastest rider all day, had crashed close to the start and had to be helicoptered off the mountain back to Turin. Ricker was released with a concussion a few hours later.)

That second-to-last jump hadn't been a problem. Except in Jacobellis's explanations.

''Sometimes it's subconscious, but that was putting on a show," Wescott, whose on-and-off three-year girlfriend, Frieden, was the beneficiary of Jacobellis's fall, said to the Associated Press. ''It's one of those things. I did it in my early rides [Wednesday] but you've got to choose your time and make sure you don't miss."

And, yet, in the flower ceremony, Jacobellis raised her arms with those of Frieden and Maltais. She celebrated, smiled, though the uplift of her lips appeared slightly off. For all her words, she knew she gave away gold.

''All of a sudden Lindsey had this insane lead, and I was just screaming at the TV, 'Keep racing, keep racing,' because you see it all the time," Foley said. ''I thought she'd made it through all the hard stuff.

''It's a mistake on her part, for sure. You can say it's bad luck, but she was in control."