“All’s well, that ends well”, right? Ehhh!!! Not in the case of snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis it doesn’t. ‘L-Jake’, no doubt spent the last four years reliving and rehashing her melt-down in the ‘06 games where her pre-mature style job cost her the Gold Medal.
Look, I don’t have a huge problem with her doing that, provided you hit it and finish. But she didn’t! If you can’t nail that style job, stay down on that last jump and get off the mountain. And the only way to get people to stop talking about that catastrophic tank job was to show up in Vancouver and do what you couldn’t do in Torino. And it looked like she was well on her way! But didn’t I say right here, in this spot yesterday, one of the reasons I love Snowboard Cross is that someone always eats it?! Well, Jacobellis was the one who ate it. Right into the gate! D.Q.’ed! Thanks for coming! 4 years of training, really 8 when you consider the 4 she wasted prior to Torino, right down the drain! At least this wasn’t a choke job.
That’ll happen. That’s snowboarding. That’s not giving away the Gold because you got caught up and butchered your style job coming in.
That said, she just bought herself another four years of being asked about Torino. But to her credit, she wasn’t sweating it and handled her latest indignity well. She went out and owned the nit portion of the event, sticking this style job with a “truck driver” grab on the final jump. Maybe that which doesn’t kill us really does make us stronger?! Or more likely she just remembered she still has the coolest job ever. 24-year-old snowboarder!
Keep shredding, Lindsey, see you in Sochi in 2014.
