SNOWBOARDING:

Canada's Anderson rides to gold in Cypress PGS

Feb. 27, 2010 — SRC Staff Report     ►Photos: Jasey-Jay Anderson (Oliver Kraus, FIS); bottom, Anderson shows off his lucky 18-year-old socks, with coach Mark Fawcett at left (Gordie Bowles, SRC)

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WEST VANCOUVER, B.C. — Canada’s Jasey-Jay Anderson punctuated his tremendous career with a gold medal Saturday in the men’s parallel giant slalom snowboard competition at Cypress.

Anderson overcame a big first-run deficit to defeat Austria’s Benjamin Karl in a head-to-head duel in the finals to claim gold. Mathieu Bozzetto of France secured the bronze.

“I love being in that situation where I have to rise above the challenge, try to dig as deep as I can and see what’s there,” Anderson said.

Anderson began the second of the two-race final Saturday with a .76-second deficit, but kept carving away at the lead and crossed .35 seconds ahead of the world's top-ranked rider.

“I knew I was on the faster course," Anderson said. "They had problems with the start gate so I had to go off of lights instead of sound. I just thought a true athlete drives on adversity, so I wanted to be a true athlete. I wanted to just make good turns with what we had out there. Hopefully I got a couple of those in there.”

In his fourth Olympics, the 34-year-old Anderson got the medal to fill out an otherwise amazing resume that includes seven World Cup titles and four world championships. He had never placed better than 20th in an Olympic PGS event.

Anderson is expected to retire, but after the race, he said, “Honestly, I don’t even know, I wasn’t even thinking about that. All I wanted to do was nice turns and do the best I could. I just worked, worked, worked to be the best I could be physically, with my equipment. The support has been amazing from every angle. It’s amazing the amount of energy that I sucked out of people around me and it’s nice to give something back, a little bit of pride and a lot of joy.”

Anderson, Canada's most decorated snowboarder, beat out Slovenia's Rok Flanders in the quarterfinal and moved past Russia’s Stanislav Detkov in the semis. Teammates Michael Lambert and Matthew Morison were eliminated in the quarterfinals after they each made critical mistakes. Morison finished 11th and Lambert 12th.

Anderson’s first of two qualifying runs were not among the leaders but he was able to advance on the strength of his second run. He did it on a course hindered by sloppy, slushy, rain-saturated snow and nearly blind racing conditions. At times, the fog was so thick, riders said they couldn't see two gates in front of them. At others, the rain laid down on their goggles to make the rut-filled trip down the course that much more treacherous.

"In these conditions it’s virtually impossible," Anderson said. "You’re swimming all day and you can’t see anything. You just have to rise above all that and do the best you can.”

Emerging stars Lambert and Morison were expected to compete for medals for Canada. But Morison fractured an elbow in December and missed the final five pre-Olympic World Cup events.

“It’s definitely a tough loss today ... I would give anything to get that run back, I’d give anything to get that mistake back but I can’t,” said a dejected Morison, who has 10 World Cup podiums in his young career.

“It was tough racing today but it’s the same for everyone. I was feeling really confident and I was riding fast. Then made an error there and now I will have to live that down for the rest of my life."

The gold medal is the Canadian snowboard team’s third medal of the Olympic Games. Anderson joins teammates Mäelle Ricker with a gold and Mike Robertson with a silver medal, both in snowboardcross. With three medals, Canada Snowboard has reached the performance objective set before the Games.

“This is a tremendous achievement for all of our athletes,” said Tom McIllfaterick, chief executive officer of Canada Snowboard. “It is also a testament to the program we’ve built over the past four years, and the incredibly dedicated coaches and technical staff who have supported the athletes on the road to these results. I’m incredibly proud of everyone in our organization for sharing a vision — and for making it happen.”  SRC

— SRC's Gordie Bowles, The Canadian Press and Canada Snowboard contributed to this report

Cypress men's Olympic PGS results