It’s Thrilling as ‘Boarders End Up at Cross Purposes

BARDONECCHIA, Italy — Yeah, buddy, it finally took a bunch of hard-charging, flat-footed good ol’ boarders to get these Winter Olympics running wide open.

Did you see it? The banking, the biting, the drifting, the drafting?

Did you hear it? Guys flying out of slingshots, guys flying into rages, guys pounding metal and fate and one another?

An Olympics looking for one good thrill finally found it Thursday during a perfect North Carolina afternoon in the Alps.

Meet the ultimate combination of American and European sport.

Call it NASCAR combined.

It’s known, officially, as snowboard cross, and, having watched the first-ever Olympic competition, I can tell you, they have the “cross” part right. Boots cross, bodies cross, and, trying to watch it all behind cheap sunglasses, your eyes cross.

As for the snowboards, well, staring up at the mountain, those can’t be snowboards. They look like pieces of cardboard tied to the feet of little kids in colorful snowsuits, racing each other down a backyard mound.

Until those little figures get closer to the bottom.

And then you realize, they’re men, they’re large and they’re flying.

This is not a sport, it’s a live Mountain Dew commercial.

Pack four of those men together on a narrow course in one giant jump-filled slide for a gold medal and, well, it’s powdered Daytona, chilly Darlington and the most fun anyone has had in these hills since before Bode hit the bars.

“That’s racin’,” said U.S. Coach Peter Foley, and that’s exactly how he said it, racin’, and if you substitute ChapStick for Skoal, well, then, Thursday was dialed in.

Especially because an American old-timer named Seth Wescott won the first gold medal with a move that would have made the Intimidator blush.

About two-thirds of the way down the mountain, trailing by so much that his coach thought he might be finished, Wescott shot inside and around Radoslav Zidek of Slovakia, then skidded to a victory that made fans in one of these Olympics’ few packed stands roar.

Said the veteran Wescott: “When I went for that path, I was going for the gold.”

Said Zidek: “He waited for my mistake.”

The ending was all great fun and drama, and it wasn’t even the best part of the afternoon, with that occurring a couple of races earlier, when two Americans went Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon on each other.

The angry one was a veteran and medal hopeful Nate Holland. His target was younger and less credentialed teammate Jason Smith.

Holland is the one with stringy blond hair and a dazed stare. Smith is the one with huge steel balls in his ears.

Anyway, after Holland had crashed in a quarterfinal won by Smith, Holland angrily threw down his board in front of the media.

“If Jason Smith would have gotten his ... in gear,” he shouted, “I wouldn’t have wrecked!”

The problem occurred about halfway down the mound, when Holland was sandwiched between Smith and Frenchman Paul-Henri Delerue heading into a jump.

When Holland shouted for Smith to speed up to give him some room, he thought Smith would listen.

“I’m feeling Delerue on my back so I’m shouting, ‘Get going! Get going!’ ” Holland said.

But Smith ignored him and, instead, slowed down over the tricky leap.

“If you go into that jump fast and miss, you might hurt something,” Smith said. “I made the choice to slow down.”

So Holland had to stall in midair, leading to a near collision that left Holland tumbling into the snow in a heap.

“He can do what he wants, but I’m mad at him as a teammate,” Holland said.

“I was right on his butt, and everyone else was riding it straight, and he decides to speed check?”

Why would Smith do that?

“Here he comes, ask him,” Holland barked, pointing to Smith walking toward the outdoor media section.

Hmm, maybe this isn’t NASCAR; maybe it’s the old Laker locker room.

When Smith heard Holland’s charges, he shrugged.

“I made the smart move,” he said. “[His crash] was the choice he made.”

Holland was so angry, he immediately filed a protest against his own teammate, and when is the last time that happened?

“It was sort of like tossing out the red flag in football,” Holland said.

This is getting more like the NFL with every paragraph.

It was ruled that their boards had not collided, that Smith had done nothing wrong, and the races continued, with the U.S. officials supporting Smith.

“You have to leave yourself room, you can’t count on the other person to ride the way you want them to,” Foley said.

The afternoon ended with Wescott celebrating, Holland stewing and Smith swaggering off into the crisp mountain air as if he were leaving the pits at Talladega.

“It’s racin’, it’s board cross, it’s why people like it!” he shouted, smiling wider than an RV in a Fontana parking lot, and he was not alone.