Medals update: Fifth time the charm for Lindsey Jacobellis in Beijing 2022 women's snowboard cross final

Lindsey Jacobellis proved that age is just a number as she produced an incredible performance to win gold in the women's snowboard cross final.

The 36-year-old, who is competing in her fifth Games, led from the front to beat France's Chloe Trespeuch who now adds Olympic silver to the bronze medal she won at Sochi 2014. Canada's Meryeta Odine wins bronze.

Jacobellis is the most decorated snowboard cross athlete of all time, having won five world championship golds and eight X Games titles. However, even though she has competed in every Olympic competition since the sport's debut in Torino 2006, the Olympic gold has always eluded her.

Until today.

As Jacobellis passed the finish line a smile as broad as the Beijing horizon was etched across her face, as she realised the gravity of her accomplishment. She can now call herself Olympic champion, 16 years after her first appearance at the Games.

Jacobellis' first Olympic medal (silver) came at Torino 2006 when the American fell while leading Switzerland's Tanja Frieden by three seconds, after attempting a celebratory trick on the second-to-last jump. The mistake proved costly, as she lost first place and with it the gold medal.

Now over a decade and a half later, the snowboarder took no chances in her race to victory.

"It was never about redemption," she said to Olympics.com when asked after the final about that fateful day in 2006. "I didn't have that in my mind coming here, I just wanted to have fun, being my fifth appearance at an Olympics. 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', so it just happened that all the stars lined up for me, for it to be my day."

Earlier in the competition, two of the favourites fell out of contention as Great Britain's world champion Charlotte Bankes and Italy's Michela Moioli both failed to reach the big final.

But Jacobellis was a model of speed and consistency in a notably unpredictable sport, winning a memorable gold to write the happiest of chapters in one of the greatest stories of the Olympic Winter Games.