American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis has won the first gold medal for Team USA in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Competing in the Snowboard Cross event on February 8, Jacobellis is the oldest female athlete to win a gold for the U.S. in Winter Olympic history.
Snowboard Cross, also known as Boardercross, is a uniquely American sport created in 1991 for a television show, Greg Stump’s World of Extremes, which aired on Fox. The event involves participants racing on a downhill course against one another in real-time.
Jacobellis has participated in the event for many years. In the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, she placed second after falling on the second-to-last jump. She said that winning the gold in 2022 was never about redemption.
“That was not in my mind,” Jacobellis said after her gold-medal victory. “I wanted to come here and just compete. It would have been a nice, sweet thing, but I think if I had tried to spend time on the thought of redemption, then it’s taking away focus on the task at hand, and that’s not why I race.”
Team USA currently sits at 10th place in total medals in the 2022 Winter Olympics after six days of competition. While not the longest drought in Team USA history, the dry spell is uncommon. In 2018, Team USA won gold on the second day of awards ceremonies and totaled nine gold medals for the competition.
For Jacobellis, returning to compete in the Olympic Games was a personal mission to fulfill a life-long goal. With five World Championship victories and ten XGames titles under her belt, she is considered the most highly-decorated American female snowboarder.
She has said that she considered retirement from the sport in 2006.
“It was definitely a possibility,” Jacobellis said about ending her career without the most prestigious of awards. “I had that in my mind, but knowing that that’s okay if that doesn’t come, that it doesn’t define who you are as a person or who you are as an athlete.”
After her second-place finish for silver in 2006, Jacobellis failed to medal in the 2010, 2014, and 2018 Olympic Games.
Wednesday’s winning moment was not lost on her. “It kind of just seemed like an unbelievable moment, it didn’t seem real at the time. I had to do a hot lap,” Jacobellis said. “This feels incredible because this level that all the women are running at is a lot higher than it was 16 years ago.”
Team USA will have numerous opportunities to add to their lone gold medal before the Olympic Games concludes on February 20. Currently, Germany holds the most gold medals at five, while the Russian Olympic Committee leads in total medals, with 11 overall, but holds only two gold medals. The U.S. has seven medals total, including Jacobellis’ gold, a bronze won in Women’s Freestyle Sprint, and five silver medals.
