After waiting 16 years to finally claim the gold medal she should’ve won at the Torino 2006 Games, American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis wasted no time picking up her career second gold medal.
Just a day after winning the women’s individual snowboard, Jacobellis and partner Nick Baumgartner teamed up to win the mixed team snowboardcross - an Olympic debut event.
With a combined age of 76, Jacobellis, 36, and Baumgartner, 40, form the eldest duo to win an Olympic competition.
On the first leg in the final, Baumgartner gave Jacobellis a 0.04-second advantage going into the last leg.
Jacobellis advanced from third to second in her final heat, as a crash behind her left it down to a race with Italy’s Michela Moioli. Jacobellis took the lead on a late curve and held on to cross the line first. Canada’s Eliot Grondin and Meryeta O’Dine won the bronze. Grondin won a silver in the snowboard cross earlier, while O’Dine picked up her second bronze medal in Beijing.
Jacobellis and Baumgartner are a study in persistence, and striking a blow for the older Olympians in Beijing as they compete against athletes half their age. She is now the oldest American woman to win two gold medals at the same Winter Olympics, joining American-born Russian snowboarder Vic Wild in the record books. Wild won the men’s parallel slalom and parallel giant slalom in Sochi 2014.
For Baumgartner, it’s try, try, try, try again as he wins his first medal, a gold one at that, in his fourth Olympic Games. He becomes the oldest snowboarder to win a medal of any color at the Winter Olympics.
“We embrace our age. We are what we are.”