Suspended in midair, Seth Wescott's biggest worry was making sure he didn't land on top of his opponent and crush him. Not exactly a typical Olympic moment.
Then again, snowboardcross is anything but a typical Olympic sport.
Wescott missed Radoslav Zidek on that harrowing landing on Thursday, then passed him for the win in the Olympic debut of the wild sport of snowboardcross.
For that, the American racer earned a gold medal. Everyone else gets warm compresses and aspirin.
"To have a great race like that in the finals, I think it just makes the sport look good," Wescott said.
There was bumping, thrashing and wipeouts over the 90-minute event, a series of four-man races down the mountain, everyone vying for space on the tight, high-banked, 900m course.
In the final race, Wescott's winning move stood out from all that, in that it was full of finesse -- a sly slip past his Slovakian opponent with time running out.
Paul-Henri Delerue of France took bronze.
"I was screaming the entire time," said American coach Peter Foley, who called it the best day of snowboardcross he's ever seen.
Wescott would surely agree.
The 29-year-old capped a decade-long quest to become an Olympic medalist, one that wound through the halfpipe and across the rough-and-tumble courses of snowboardcross, his sport's more violent -- and maybe more exciting -- cousin.
"I think for a lot of people who just see snowboarding in the halfpipe, they might not see all the intricacies of it," Wescott said. "But with this, they love the racing aspect and for all of us, it's one of the things that makes it so exciting to do. I think that translates to the viewing public, too."
Wescott won by being able to stay out of any messes over his four trips down the slope.
In the final, he took the lead from Zidek first by avoiding him on a jump, then picking up speed on the high line of the course and zipping below him after a hard right turn. He led the rest of the way, and beat Zidek to the finish line by about half a board.
"I almost landed on Rado," Wescott said. "I had a bunch of speed coming into that `hip jump.' I was a little worried in the air that that might be the end of the race right there. I was looking down on him and I wasn't sure exactly where the trajectory was going to put me."
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