Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis Wins First U.S. Gold Medal At Beijing Olympics

U.S. snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis set a lot of firsts on her fifth try.

The 36-year-old won her first gold medal on Wednesday (women’s snowboard cross) to give her country its first such hardware of the 2022 games. She also became the oldest American woman to win a Winter gold.

You can call it redemption for her devastating loss (though she wouldn’t) at the 2006 Torino Olympics, during which she celebrated prior to crossing the finish line and wiped out. She also failed to medal in the Pyeongchang, Sochi and Vancouver Olympics.

“I never thought of it that way [redemption],” she said. “That was not in my mind. I wanted to just come here and compete. It would have been a nice, sweet thing, but I think if I had tried to spend [time on] the thought of redemption, then it’s taking away focus on the task at hand, and that’s not why I race.”

Jacobellis is 9 and 12 years older than her silver- and bronze-winning contemporaries.

“This feels incredible because this level that all the women are riding at is a lot higher than it was 16 years ago,” Jacobellis said. “So I felt like I was a winner just that I made it to the finals, because that’s been a challenge every time.”

It was a five-day streak with no gold medals for the U.S.; in the last eight Winter games it’s taken on average 1.75 days for the country to win its first gold.