jawnbc | medaille d'or et champion olympique

I had to be up early today, since I had a ticket for the ladies' snowboard cross event up on Cypress Mountain. Start time was 10am: checked every source I could find, found no evidence of a delay, and then scooted out of the house to get to the north shore for my ride up the mountain. When I arrived at 930am--after a 30 minute shuttle bus crawl and a 2km walk--I discovered the event was delayed 2 hours.

Even once the event start it was repeatedly delayed due to fog. On the first qualification time trial both Canadians--both in the top 3 in the world--bombed out. On the second go, Maëlle Ricker roared back to 3rd of 24. Sadly Dominique Maltais DQd the second run as well: turns out she'd had a brutal spill during a morning training run and couldn't find her feet over the bolts.

During the quarter final, Ricked led from pillar to post. Ditto during the semi-final she similarly kicked ass. So she was in the 4 person final--familiar territory for our gal. In Torino in 2006 she qualified for the final, only to take a nasty spill and finish 4th. Since 2002 she's represented Canada at the Games in both boarder cross and halfpipe. She's got top 5 results each time before...she's won everything in the sport except an Olympic medal.

Until today: in the final she led the entire way as well, earning the gold medal--Canada's second of the Games and the first by a woman on home (Canadian) soil! Even sweeter, she grew up in West Vancouver. Winner!

I was at the Olympics today. I even saw Canada earn gold! OMFG!