Oops She Did It Again

Lindsey Jacobellis must be the unluckiest Olympian there is.

Four years ago in Torino she was leading by a country mile but decided to do a grab off the last jump within sight of the gold.



This year having won everything in between she crashed through one of the control gates in the semi-final and ended up having to content herself with winning the B-Final for 5th place overall.

Meanwhile the main event saw more Canadian gold as Maelle Ricker who lives in Vancouver won not just on home soil, but her home mountain. As with the men it was the junior French team member who was here for 'experience' who experienced silver in Deborah Anthonioz. World champion Helene Olafsen of Norway and Switzerland's Olivia Nobs crashed out half way down.

What a Finish

Yesterday in the men's Boarder Cross final the Canadian's thought they were on to a another gold. Most of the way down the track Mike Robertson (red bib) had been in the lead. Defending champion Seth Westcott (black bib) had a poor start away from the gate. Indeed at the turn that had been the unseating of many through the rounds he was lying in fourth spot of the four.

But his compatriot Nate Holland fell leaving room for the unexpected French finalist Tony Ramoin who had never podiumed at any event sitting in silver. But the experience of Westcott showed as he carried speed through the technical end to the Whistler course, overtaking first Romoin and then on the last corner overhauling the Canadian. As you can see from the picture above over the last jump it was still close but a perfect landing saw Westcott take the gold once again and Canada had to settle for a silver.

It was better than they fared in the men's downhill where Eric Guay coming in fifth. But American Bode Miller attacked the top of the course to become an early leader, but he was later edged out by edged our Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal by 0.02 of a second. But the cowbells were soon ringing in force as Swiss Didier Defago took another seven hundredths out of that lead for gold.

Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo had a very happy start to the Chinese year of the tiger lifting gold in the figure skating pairs, fellow Chinese pair Pang Qing and Tong Jian took silver and Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy the bronze.