Cross, Women

Italy’s Michela Moioli was a slight favorite, coming in with six medals from the World Championships since 2015. The dominant cross boarder of the 2000s and early 2010s was American Lindsey Jacobellis who had famously lost the 2006 gold medal when she went for a grab near the finish in Torino, fell and had to settle for silver. Jacobellis was still good but considered past her prime.

Moioli showed her form by winning the seeding round, with Great Britain’s Charlotte Bankes in second place, as Jacobellis qualified in sixth place. Moioli and Jacobellis advanced to the semi-finals where they were drawn in the same heat, won by Jacobellis, as Moioli finished third and did not make the final.

In the final Jacobellis’s biggest opposition was expected to come from Frenchwoman Chloé Trespeuch, the bronze medalist from Sochi 2014, with Australian Belle Brockhoff and Canadian Meryeta O’Dine rounding out the field.

Jacobellis won the gold medal, 16 years after her tragic loss at Torino, the largest gap ever between medals in an Olympic snowboarding event, as Trespeuch finished second to win her second medal in snowboard cross.

Jacobellis became the oldest Olympic snowboarding champion, at 36-174, bettering the record of Benjamin Karl, the Austrian who had won the men’s parallel giant slalom the day before at 36-115. Jacobellis also became the oldest female gold medalist for the United States at the Winter Olympics. The gold rounded out her career which included six World Championships, two World Cup Crystal Globes and 10 X Games golds.