Did experience trump youth for the 'golden oldies' of Beijing 2022?

One particular headline at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 brought a smile to the faces of sports fans of a certain age; it went something like this: 'US golden oldies snatch victory in mixed team snowboard cross with a combined age of 76'.

In a sport that is very much one for the battle-hardened souls – racing from top to bottom of the course, navigating jumps and bumps and with crashes par for the course as four athletes jostle for the lead – it is experience that proves the deciding factor, said Lindsey Jacobellis.

She should know.

At her fifth time of asking, the 36-year-old who has dominated the sport for years but never won an Olympic title, has finally come away with not one but two gold medals – in the individual, and also the mixed team event alongside fellow 'golden oldie' teammate Nick Baumgartner, aged 40.

One part of Jacobellis' experience has been painful, ongoing and high profile. Every Olympic Winter Games since Turin 2006, when snowboard cross and indeed Jacobellis made their debut, the American has featured on the blooper reels.

A favourite for the event, and miles in the lead heading into the final throes of the course, Jacobellis did a bit of showboating, fell, and lost gold, coming in for a silver medal. At Vancouver 2010 she finished fifth, at Sochi 2014, 7th, and at PyeongChang 2018, just missed the podium, coming in fourth after leading for most of the way.

During her career, Jacobellis has won six world championship gold medals and 10 Winter X Games titles.

Just 19 in Turin and already a world champion, Jacobellis asked afterwards, what teenager hasn't made a silly mistake? Hers was just higher profile than most. Nevertheless, the experience took its toll.

“I did get a lot of backlash and I got hate mail,” she revealed. “And it was hard to deal with as a young athlete.

But over time and after processing what had happened with a mental coach, she was able to see that it was only one part of her story.

“It was just one thing, it doesn't define you. It took me a while to believe that and to really just accept that and be OK with that. And it was part of, you know, forgiving myself and learning.

“I've been trying to work on understanding my emotions and my reactions because that was all the mental prep that I was doing over the last eight years."

There was nothing like that this time around. Both Jacobellis and Baumgartner were fully focused, yes, but also wanting to enjoy the moment and eek out what they could of a career entering its twilight years – not that we want to be presumptuous here given the context of this article...

Baumgartner agrees with experience being a big part of their success. "As you get older you learn so much about yourself and about your riding, but for me, you get hungrier, you want it more, because you know there's an expiration date and it's coming.

"I put in more sacrifices, I put in more work than I ever have," he added. "Each year I say I worked harder, and they're like, 'You said that last year', and I was like, 'Well, I have to work harder'.

Perhaps this is one of the factors with older medal winners, that this might be the last Winter Games for them. A greener Olympian might think they have years to come. Norway’s Alpine skiing superkid, Lucas Braathen, 21, was honest in his appraisal of his debut Olympic Winter Games, in which World Cup results gave him hope that a medal might be on the cards. He headed home to Norway with two DNFs – did not finish – in the slalom and giant slalom.

On Instagram – where else – the Norwegian-Brazilian wrote: “Wish I could share pictures and emotions filled with joy and happiness from my own performance in my first Olympics. But that’s not how it went for me this time around.

“Feels like a right hook to the chin with a quick reality check, in the middle of what is the coolest season of my career. The margins that we have to deal with is the beauty of our sport, just as much as it is the absolute worst.”

And there's more

The thing is, Baumgartner and Jacobellis are not an anomaly. As at close of play Friday 18 February, 14 of the 292 medals available – almost five per cent – were won by those aged 36 or over, with 39 medallists aged 33 or over, a little over 13 per cent, and that's with two days of the Games still to go.

Two of those who might add to that tally are the US pair of Kaillie Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor, 36 and 37, respectively, who came first and second in the women’s monobob on Monday (14 February). They are also both taking part in the two-woman bobsleigh, albeit with different partners. Humphries will be joined by Kaysha Love, a mere 24, and Meyers Taylor with Sylvia Hoffman, 32. After the first two runs on Friday (18 February) Meyers Taylor was in third place with Humphries in fifth heading into the final two medal runs on Saturday (19 February).

So what is it that is making these athletes still able to compete with the hungry up-and-comers, particularly at these Winter Games?

One of the reasons could be experience, yes, but even this Olympic Games was going to be unlike anything else any athlete had been a part of, young debutant or not. This one is taking place in the midst of a global pandemic with tracks and courses that the athletes have had little time to practice on.

Nevertheless, Jacobellis agrees experience has still been key: “I've been on this team for 20 years, Nick's been on this team for 17 years, we are like a family," she said post race.

"We know the hard times, and we know how to pick each other up, and we can have empathy for those times when everything's hard or when you're going through an injury. It all comes into play when you can put it all together and make it work for you.

"It's the experience in snowboard cross, because it's so hard to replicate the same scenario, because there's so many uncontrolled variables.

"It really helps to have the years behind you, so you can make the best execution and call what you need to do in that moment because you have mere seconds or less to make a decision."

Social butterfly problems

Distractions are perhaps prevalent with some of the younger generations, said Jacobellis. “Recovery is probably the best thing an athlete can do, especially a more seasoned athlete. I definitely focus on trying to get to bed mostly by 10pm.

"A lot of the times with the younger kids, they're staying up late playing games, which is fun, but I have to go to bed.”

Another distraction for more youthful athletes is perhaps the demands of social media, says 38-year-old Benjamin Alexander, not an Olympic medalist but the first Jamaican to compete in Alpine skiing at an Olympic Winter Games. Despite having a comparatively lowly 5,000 followers on Instagram when Olympics.com interviewed him in November, he said he doesn't need to use social media the same way as perhaps the newbies do.

The former DJ and financier, who only took up the sport aged 32, says he doesn’t subscribe to the loose requirement of marketers requesting athletes have a gazillion followers on social media in order to attract sponsorship -- all of which takes extra time and effort.

Alexander told Olympics.com that his engaged community works better for him rather than a lot of followers. “I know that everything I need, whether that's an introduction to someone or financial support, is inside that network, and I'm very fortunate to have that. If I was a 20-year-old athlete, I wouldn't have that. I would have my school friends and no one else, right? So that allows me to look at social media in a different way.”

Baumgartner uses the fact that there are new athletes keen to step up every year as motivation. "As you get older, it's tough to watch the young kids take over and try to push you out of the sport so that hunger is strong.

"As long as you're willing to put in the work, and you still have the dedication for the hard work, you can really push yourself to a new level."

And the next generation can't help but be inspired by the duo.

Canada's Meryeta O'Dine who was part of the pair with Eliot Grondin who were favourites to win the mixed team snowboard cross event, says of Jacobellis' trail-blazing role in the sport: "She's definitely been at the top of the female game for quite a long time and tried to make a lot of really positive differences in this sport.

"Seeing her getting two golds at this Olympics after so many ups and downs in her career is so inspiring."

Grondin, meanwhile, said of Baumgartner: “I'm super impressed by him. He's twice my age and he's still so fast and got the gold today. I'm just so proud to be able to race him now, because 10 years ago I was cheering him on in World Cup events. It's pretty cool."

So what’s the secret of these golden oldies? We’ll let Jacobellis tell us:

"It's the internal fire in you, believing in yourself, whether you're trying to get a gold medal or just improving your day-to-day life," she said. "If you continue to try to grow and better yourself, then you're winning in that aspect already."

You don't need to be an Olympic athlete to follow that guidance.