The running joke was that US snowboard cross racer Nick Baumgartner always refered to them as a pair of 40-somethings.
“I’m 36,” Lindsey Jacobellis playfully corrected time after time in interview after interview.
For these two, and all their vast experience, age proved to be one thing — golden.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Jacobellis yesterday won her second title of the Beijing Olympics, teaming with Baumgartner to capture the new event of mixed team snowboard cross.
Italy placed second, while Canada won the bronze medal.
At 40 years, 57 days, Baumgartner, the concrete worker and contractor from Michigan, is the oldest snowboarder to win an Olympic medal.
Photo: Reuters
At 36 years, 177 days, Jacobellis, the author of a new children’s book, is the second-oldest.
“You’re never too late to take what you want from life,” Baumgartner said. “You let yourself down if you quit too early, doesn’t matter how old you are. Our success at our age is a perfect example of that.”
Jacobellis took gold earlier this week in the women’s event; it came 16 years after a late showboat move as she was cruising in for an apparent win cost her the title at the Turin Games.
“It’s the internal fire in believing in yourself, whether you’re trying to go get a gold medal or just improving your day-to-day life,” said Jacobellis, whose new book titled Sochi: A True Story is sold out. “You continue to try to grow and better yourself.”
Their victory was marred by news that US Ski & Snowboard was investigating allegations that their longtime Olympic coach, Peter Foley, took naked pictures of female athletes and that snowboard racer Hagan Kearney used racist language to provoke a teammate.
Former snowboard cross rider Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, a member of the 2010 Olympic team, wrote in an Instagram post that in addition to taking the photographs, Foley had made inappropriate comment to her when she was 17 in 2014, and that Kearney repeatedly used the N-word to “intentionally get under my skin.”
Chythlook-Sifsof is from Alaska and describes herself as Yupik and Inupiaq.
US Ski & Snowboard said in a statement that it “takes all allegations seriously. Peter Foley remains as US snowboard cross team head coach while all recent allegations are being investigated.”
On Instagram, Chythlook-Sifsof wrote: “I cannot watch another Olympic Games without saying this publicly.”
Additional reporting by AFP
SPEEDSKATING
REUTERS and AP, BEIJING
Gao Tingyu yesterday won China its first men’s speedskating gold, smashing the Olympic record to cross the finish line in 34.32 seconds as spectators cheered him on in the men’s 500m at the Beijing Olympics.
He set the pace early as the seventh pairing out of 15, finishing the single lap around the 400m oval in a time that his rivals failed to beat.
Cha Min-kyu of South Korea claimed silver in 34.39 seconds and Wataru Morishige of Japan took bronze in 34.49.
Gao became the first Chinese man to win an Olympic medal in speedskating four years ago, when he won bronze in the same event.
Meanwhile, Japan set an Olympic record in the quarter-finals of the women’s speedskating team pursuit.
They broke their own record with a time of 2 minutes, 53.61 seconds, advancing to the semi-finals as the top qualifier.
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