February 22, 2006 - Friday
Last Friday something rather remarkable happened at the Winter Olympics in the finals of the Women's Snowboard Cross. American Lindsey Jacobellis was ahead by several seconds going into the penultimate jump due to a wipe out and a collision that put all three of her Finals competitors on the ground. It was essentially a victory lap at that point, but the American ultimately didn't win. While she was in the air going over that second to last jump she tried to ham in up with a board grab move and fell. She was passed by the Swiss snowboarder, Tanja Freiden, while she was still on the snow and eventually finished second for the silver medal.

Now, I'm no great fan of Snowboarding in the Olympics. I'm more of a traditionalist and snowboarding is relatively new. I'm even less taken by the snowboard half-pipe and other freestyle events pit a bunch of people in bulky snow suits trying to be graceful and acrobatic. Still, I did find this brand new event, snowboard cross, at least a little more interesting because it was a straight race with a little pushing and jockeying for position. That pushing and shoving between the others was what gave Jacobellis such a big lead, but it was her own fooling around that took the gold medal away. Fortunately, because the boys' mother and I were watching our Friday night movie, I recorded it.

This afternoon I showed it to Harry and Jeremy. They've been watching enough of the Olympics to understand the basics: that these are the best athletes in the world and they're competing for the gold medal. And what they saw was a person who lost what she's worked years to achieve because she was, in terms the boys could also understand, fooling around and not being responsible.

Harry told mommy about it at dinner.


Comments, Opinions?