Going overboard costly for U.S. in women's SBX
11:06 PM CST on Friday, February 17, 2006
BARDONECCHIA, Italy – Athletically, the women's snowboard cross final Friday was the equivalent of Leon Lett celebrating a touchdown in the Super Bowl prematurely and losing the ball before he crossed the goal line. Journalistically, it was the equivalent of the Chicago Tribune's "Dewey defeats Truman" headline during the 1948 presidential election. Lindsey Jacobellis of Stratton Mountain, Vt., had the gold medal wrapped up. The two fastest racers in qualifying, Canadians Maelle Ricker and Dominique "Dom" Maltais, had crashed well up the mountain. Tanja Frieden of Switzerland was about 30 meters behind Jacobellis. Jacobellis had the finish line in sight, not much more than 100 meters away, and only two easy jumps to go. A foreign coach tried to shake the hand of Jeff Archibald, an assistant U.S. coach, to congratulate him. At 7:48 a.m. Dallas time, the Associated Press moved an urgent bulletin: American Lindsey Jacobellis has won the gold medal in women's snowboard cross. Then Jacobellis flew off the next-to-last jump, tried to grab her board and crashed on the landing. She got back up, but she had lost all her speed. Frieden zipped past her to the gold medal. "I was super stoked to get silver," Frieden said. " ... All of a sudden I saw her crash there, and it was like, 'Whoa!' " Jacobellis got the silver instead. Maltais, who crashed into the netting higher up but got back on course, won the bronze. Ricker suffered a concussion, didn't finish the race and was taken to a hospital in Turin. Jacobellis insisted that she wasn't showing off. "I had been having trouble with that jump all day because of the wind," she said. "I was trying all different kinds of grabs to try to stabilize myself in the air. "But it just didn't work." "I'm definitely disappointed," Jacobellis said. "I was focusing on that jump because I was having trouble with that jump all day. I was feeling myself getting thrown by it. "And when it came down to it, I wasn't able to pull it together." Jacobellis went a little further a few hours later during a conference call – "I was having fun, and that's what snowboarding is." U.S. coach Peter Foley said Jacobellis has always had a tendency to grab her board for stability, but after looking at a frame-by-frame breakdown of the jump shot by Associated Press photographers, he conceded that Jacobellis probably had gone over the top. "She definitely styled that a little too hard," he said. Foley wasn't alone. "Sometimes it's subconscious, but that was putting on a show," said American Seth Wescott, the men's champion from the day before. "It's one of those things. I did it in my early rides yesterday, but you've got to choose your time and make sure you don't miss." Jacobellis and Frieden both said the race proved that anything can happen in snowboard cross. Frieden recalled that in the 2003 Winter X Games, she thought she was leading comfortably and stood up near the finish, only to see Jacobellis slip by her for the gold medal. "It's boardercross, and all of us have learned through other races that it's never finished until it's finished," Frieden said. "I don't feel sad or bad about [winning this way]. One day it's me, one day it's her. One day it's Dom." At 7:54 a.m., the Associated Press moved a new urgent – American Lindsey Jacobellis is NOT the winner. The Associated Press contributed to this report. E-mail kstephens@dallasnews.com 