Bardonecchia, Italy – American Seth Wescott kept the U.S. snowboard streak alive on Thursday, riding his way into the record books as the first champion in the history of Olympic snowboardcross and bringing home the third gold medal in three events by an American snowboarder.
Inspired by the gold-medal performances of U.S. halfpipe riders Shaun White and Hannah Teter, Wescott made the most of his Olympic opportunity, methodically making his way through three rounds of racing before completing the sweep with an electrifying, come-from-behind finish in the final.
“I went and watched both the men and women (halfpipe riders) the other day, and that for sure helped to fire me up,” said Wescott, 29, from Farmington, Maine. “It was a cool spirit thing to go watch them get it done.”
Wescott’s gold-medal performance in the fledgling Olympic discipline best described as “motocross on snow” had all the elements of an amazing race – carnage, comebacks and an astonishingly close finish, as Wescott edged out Slovakian Radoslav Zidek by half a snowboard length. After dominating the starts in each of the previous three rounds of competition, reigning world champion Wescott lost the holeshot to Zidek in the final, then slowly reeled him back in before making a daring heelside pass on the inside of a sharp right turn three quarters of the way down the 3,000-foot course. Paul-Henri Delerue of France finished third.
“I had the momentum going right then and didn’t want to wait to see if there was going to be another opportunity,” Wescott said. “This was the first time to be able to pull this off in history. So when I was going for that pass, I was going for gold.”
Trouble came early and often in the first race. Top qualifier Drew Neilson of Canada had his board swept out from underfoot early in the preliminary heat of four riders racing side-by-side in the finals bracket, one of six crashes in the first eight-race bracket alone. The collisions continued throughout the day, impacting the Americans when Jason Smith of Basalt and Nate Holland of Squaw Valley, Calif., got tangled up in their quarterfinal, resulting in Holland crashing and failing to qualify for the semis along with his teammates.
“I won the start, was out in front and didn’t really know what was going on behind me,” Smith said. “I knew when we went off that hip jump somebody was there. I didn’t realize it was Nate. I’m not sure what kind of contact was going on, but I definitely felt somebody there. Unfortunately, he went down. I would have loved to have gone into the next final with Holland.”
After moving to the head of the pack along with Wescott in the semifinal round, Smith failed to reach the final when Delerue made a late pass to win the round. Smith finished second in the consolation final to place sixth overall. Holland was 14th.
For Wescott, the Olympic medal and excitement of what U.S. coach Peter Foley called “the best race I’ve ever seen” were the culmination of years of frustration as a former halfpipe rider who twice failed to make the U.S. snowboard team.
“1998 was the start of my Olympic dream and trying to make the pipe team,” he said. “Falling short of that, it’s been a long road, a lot of years of halfpipe, a lot of years of snowboardcross. When we got this decision (that snowboardcross would become an Olympic sport) in February 2003, I was excited because it was less of a question whether I could make the team, but rather what I could go and accomplish.”
Now it’s Lindsey Jacobellis’ turn. Jacobellis, three times a champion in boardercross – the X Games version – is the only U.S. competitor on the women’s side.
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
