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Jacobellis admits to putting on a little show

Shauna Farnell
Associated PressTanja Frieden of Switzerland, center and gold medal, American Lindsey Jacobellis, left and silver medal and Dominique Maltais of Canada, right and bronze medal, smile during the flower ceremony of the Women's Snowboard Cross competition at the Winter Olympic Games in Bardonecchia, Italy, Friday. Jacobellis who led for most of the race crashed in sight of the finish line allowing Frieden to head for gold.
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Snowboardcross silver medalist Lindsey Jacobellis fell victim to an onslaught of questions Friday evening regarding the stylish grab she pulled off a jump at the end of her Olympic finals run.

Jacobellis was seconds ahead of the pack in the boardercross event. Boardercross is a race, where tricks and grabs over jumps are not judged or in any way rewarded. That didn’t stop the 20-year-old from Vermont from throwing a grab off the second to the last jump on the course.

She landed, caught an edge and crashed, allowing Swiss rider Tanja Frieden to rip past her to the finish line and the gold medal.



But Jacobellis, who also competes in halfpipe and has a strong freestyle background, said throwing grabs when she catches air on the boardercross course is not unusual for her.

“I always grab when I go over the jumps,” she said. “There is an advantage to grabbing over the jumps. It keeps you balanced in the air.”

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But she didn’t deny that this particular grab may have been employed for more than race strategy.

“I was caught up in the moment and forgot that I still had to race,” she said.

Clearly, there was no need for strategy at that point in Jacobellis’s run, as the rest of the field was nowhere near her.

“The grab that I did was maybe not the best grab to be strategic,” she said. “But I was having fun, and that’s what snowboarding is all about.”

Jacobellis’s voice began to shake as the questions persisted and the “congratulations” for her silver were few and far between, which she was sure to note.

“Not many of you are saying that,” she said to one congratulator.

Jacobellis said she was exhausted after the race, and refused to describe herself as “heartbroken.”

“It’s just a race,” she said. “At least I didn’t miss out on a medal. I was ahead. I wanted to share the moment with the crowd. I messed up. It happens.”


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