Her name became a verb for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, she was a punchline for late night TV hosts and haunted when dubbed sport’s dumbest showboat.
Lindsey Jacobellis thought her dream was over but nowhere does redemption stories quite like the Olympics and this one is a belter.
She expressed a determination not to be defined by that one day in Bardonecchia 16 years ago but it was never far away, a quick Google search of her name and there it was, a momentary lapse of competitive judgment that couldn’t be escaped. Imagine the mistakes you made as a 20-year old being endlessly replayed for collective amusement every four years, without fail.
Snowboard cross, a high-speed chase down a mountain interrupted by stretches of jumps and moguls, has been described as ‘Nascar on snow’ and is one of the most thrilling sports at the Games. It’s thrills and spills in equal measure, only for Jacobellis it’s more of the latter than the former.
In Turin she took the penultimate jump of the women’s snowboard cross with a decisive lead, her rivals admitting they’d all but given up. The line - and gold - in sight she attempt a celebratory grab, only to crash on landing and settle for silver, a medal she wore like a millstone.
She finished fifth in 2010, seventh in 2014 and fourth in 2018, just barely missing the podium in Pyeongchang by three-hundredths of a second.
Since Turin she has won five world titles and ten X Games gold and 52 World Cup races, she has dominated her sport like no-one ever has. She has been through three knee injuries that would have ended other careers and seen off all-comers half her age to earn her place at another Games. Now, perhaps, it’s all worth it.
“It was really never about redemption, I’ve never thought of it that way, it’s taking away focus on the task at hand, and that’s not why I race,” said Jacobellis, who won gold on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport app.
“That was not in my mind. I wanted to just come here and compete and I felt a winner just being in that final.
“I’ve long put 2006 in the past and have done a lot of soul searching to realise that moment does not define me as an athlete.
“I know what I’ve accomplished in this sport is huge and I’ve been lucky to shape this sport for two decades. What happened in Turin was not necessarily a motivation. I’m just a competitor and I have been since I was little.
“Any lady out here had the ability to come out here and win and that’s how our sport can work at times. It’s just a roll of the dice and it’s how the stars are aligned, how your body’s feeling, how your board’s running, and it’s anyone’s game sometimes and you shouldn’t count the old girl out.”
This has been the USA’s worst-ever start to a Games, nearly five days in and no golds to brag about - until now, Jacobellis, at 36, becoming the oldest American woman to win in any sport at the Winter Olympics.
Sport is full of sliding doors moments, indeed Jacobellis believes a win 16 years ago could have marked the end of her snowboarding career.
“I probably would have quit the sport at that point because I wasn’t really having fun with it,” she added.
“There was so much pressure on me to be the golden girl. I’d won so many races going into it and it’s a lot for a young athlete to have on their plate.
“I was very young and extremely marketable and hopefully doing something like this proves older athletes can do it too.
“That’s definitely something that people don’t understand and you don’t realise how young some of these athletes are.”
You get a lot of contrasts as these Games, curling is a world removed from shredding snowboarders, figure skaters couldn’t be more different to trash talking bobsledders.
But on a day when current American golden girl Mikaela Shriffin was left in tears on the slalom course, after another disappointment, Jacobellis proves it pays to play the long game.
Watch All the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 live on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport app
