Canada’s Meryeta O’Dine won a bronze medal in women’s snowboard cross at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.
BRONZE
Meryeta O’Dine wins a snowboard cross bronze for #TeamCanada at #Beijing2022
Details on her medal: https://t.co/a2SeK29s31 pic.twitter.com/2rod4kndTt
— Team Canada (@TeamCanada) February 9, 2022
The 24-year-old native of Prince George, B.C., was a surprise medallist after being ranked 12th in the World Cup standings this season.
Lindsay Jacobellis won the four-woman big final and captured the first gold medal for the United States in Beijing. Chloe Trespeuch of France was second.
REDEMPTION.
16 years after a late fall at Turin 2006 denied her the gold medal, Lindsey Jacobellis is a #snowboard cross Olympic champion. #Beijing2022 pic.twitter.com/WxMVplVcsh
— Olympics (@Olympics) February 9, 2022
Up until Wednesday, Jacobellis was best known for taking a massive lead into the final jump at the 2006 Turin Games, but tweaking her board as she road over the crest, then falling and settling for silver.
O’Dine, who won first-round, quarterfinal and semifinal races and had the third fastest qualifying time of the day, picked up Canada’s seventh medal of the Games.
It marked Canada’s first medal in women’s snowboard cross since Dominique Maltais won silver in 2014 in Sochi.
Tess Critchlow of Big White, B.C., finished sixth after coming second in the small final.
O’Dine missed the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics after she suffered the fifth concussion of her career in training just two days before she was scheduled to compete.
The road to Beijing also has been challenging. O’Dine has called 2020 the most difficult year of her life as her brother Brandon died after a battle with cancer just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.
O’Dine told the Canadian Olympic Committee she struggled with anxiety and depression after Brandon’s death, but that she re-learned how to be an Olympic-level athlete with the help of psychologists.
O’Dine’s earned Canada’s third snowboard medal of the Games, after Max Parrot of Bromont, Que., won gold and Regina’s Mark McMorris took bronze in the men’s slopestyle.
— With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
