Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Top Moment of the Day – 9 February: Glory at last for American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis

There is action every day at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 but we’ll select for you the best one at the end of the competitions, when Beijing is closing its doors. Today: Lindsey Jacobellis and the arduous journey to gold.

Lindsey Jacobellis snaps Olympic curse to clinch Team USA's first gold of Beijing 2022

Sixteen years after a failed trick cost her the inaugural Olympic women's snowboard cross title at Turin 2006, Lindsey Jacobellis finally won her gold.

The 36-year-old veteran led from start to finish to take Team USA's first gold of Beijing 2022 ahead of France’s Chloe Trespeuch and Meryeta Odine and become the oldest snowboarder to win an Olympic medal.

A five-time world champion, two-time Crystal Globe winner and eight-time X Games champion, the American arrived in the Chinese capital as by far and away the most successful snowboard cross athlete of all time. The only thing missing from her list of honours was Olympic gold.

In sport, however, nothing is guaranteed and even less so at the Winter Olympics.

In the final at Torino, Jacobellis was flying at the front with victory at her mercy before a 'method grab' on the penultimate jump went horribly wrong.

She managed to get going again, but not in time to stop Switzerland's Tanja Frieden taking the gold.

Jacobellis was unrepentant afterwards saying, "Snowboarding is fun. I was having fun."

But the gold continued to elude her as she went off-course at Vancouver 2010 and fell at Sochi 2014 before finishing outside the medals at PyeongChang 2018.

But on Wednesday at the Genting Snow Park, everything went to plan.

Redemption for Turin? Not so, according to Jacobellis.

She told Olympics.com, "It was never about redemption. I didn’t have that in my mind coming here.

"My thought going into this was, 'It’s either going to happen or it’s not' and 'It could be my day, or it could be another one of the ladies’ days’.