GOLD!

She did great!

For all you folks who are not here, it is impossible to describe the atmosphere in the city . . . just outstanding and the weather forecast for the next 8-10 days is sunny, high of 14 - 15.

It is only gonna get better.

A real cutie and, from what I saw, a convincing win. Being a local BC gal is probably a bonus to the fans to boot.

Talk about suspense that led up to the final 4. Great Job Maelle!

Yes, I think Vancouver will come out with a lot of good publicity as a summer holiday destination.

Did I mention that I like a sport that doesn't rely on judges and "artistic" merit. This is a fastest is firstest event.

Texas Canuck - I agree with the fastest is firsest comment of yours - and I think it's quite different than say men's and women's downhill, where people race one at a time, where conditions can change so much during the day, significantly affecting results (or so I would guess).

Yay! Yes this sport is fun to watch!

Peter O'Donnell
[.......Yes, I think Vancouver will come out with a lot of good publicity as a summer holiday destination.]

As the riot capital?

RESIST THE NEW WORLD ORDER

An awesomely entertaining sport to watch, and a GREAT race for Gold by Maelle Rickard! Women's snowboard 'cross has now become my fave TV sport ...taking over from women's beach volleyball!

IDEA! Could we put the snowboard babes in bikinis like beach volleyball?!? THAT would be great TV!

I have to agree here--Maelle is definitely a cutie! Girl-next-door pretty. Mom would approve.

I also loved the way the silver and bronze winners were getting the crowd all hopped up and screamy for the hometown girl. Very classy.

I really like the format of the first finishers in each qualification advancing... instead of the times, as noted above. I'd be interested in seeing if this format caught on in skiing as well.
"downhill pursuit" ? I dunno.

Fun to watch...Yeah!!! But are we all armchair athletes here?
I was thinking it would be fun to TRY!!
....about 30 years ago....

Hey Marc this format is already in the Olympics!

There will be both Men's and Women's skiercross races in the coming days.

Canada is a medal threat in both, pretty good shot to sweep the podium in the women's races.

Glad to see these events gaining fans, hopefully you'll all watch the X Games next year and we can grow this sport even more

Maelle is a snowboard goddess!

Marc

The format has already caught on. Skier Cross qualifying runs are on the 21st. you will only have to wait 5 days to see it.

we used to use cardboard for snowboarding years ago,--lotsa fun!
Tho I'm not an ice-rocks fan they say Canada should win gold, yaaaah.

at time of posting,          Canuckistan matches USA in gold and silver at 2 each at each level.

thus making we polite Canadians really, really bad hosts.

LOL !!!

oh look,           I            figured out how to
jam                          spaces into the lines of                   text.

does this mean I get a gold medal in 'key'board? LOL !!!

We could make women's snowboard 'cross even better ... let 'em use handguns with an 8-shot clip!

WHOO HOOO!!!

GO MAELLE GO!!

Living up to her namesake: AMBITIOUS

Three Cheers

MORE Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"

Good on ya' Maelle Ricker! She and her fellow Canuckthletes make us proud.

Her gold medal should be the cue for the boohoo/wet-blanket/glass-is-half-empty crowd to open up in full force. Expect to hear gems like "This race was not conducted in French", "We're Canadians, only 16th place will do", "We're embarassing ourselves by doing too well".

I wish these clowns would STFU and let the rest of us get on with our moment in the sun.

hope we wup a$$ in these games

well, at least bring home a lot O scrap metal:-)))

Well, Vancouver is like Toronto in one way, the activities of the one per cent who are radicals are held up as being "typical" of the 99% who have nothing much to do with it.

Hopefully the Olympics will have some impact on the national stereotyping of Vancouver and British Columbia, although I doubt it, because these things have a life of their own.

I've lived in Ontario (rural and small town) and B.C. (several parts) and frankly, the differences are often oversold by those who can only think in stereotypes and group dynamics. Individuals are pretty much the same across the country. If you're conservative in Ontario, you'll probably be conservative after moving to B.C.

As to the international press and especially the London papers, we don't really care that much, after all it's win-win if those people get a bad impression of this area, it just means they are less likely to show up here which is fine by us.

One of the snowboardcross athletes is an Austrian woman named Maria Ramberger.

I'd marry her, sight unseen, just because of that name.

@ Texas Canuck, besides your points of having "no judges and "artistic" merit", it was pointed out by Jim Rome on his radio show, that he likes it also because it involves elbows, and that the dudes were wearing denim yesterday.

I'll add they should allow the the gold medal Sno Cross winners to spank the losers with their snowboard.

Nice job Maelle.
What I like best is her genuine infectious laugh.

Al the frozen fish in Manitoba;

take a closer look,. the team USA snow-X pants "look like denim". they certainly ain't denim!

The team USA mogul suits "looked like pyjamas" LOL

That was awesome and fun to watch. Congratulations Maelle.

Does anyone know who and when Canada's First Nations medal favorites are? I've been anxiously awaiting the performances of Canada's First Nations athletes since the Opening Ceremony featured them so prominently.

Just curious.

I primarily follow snowboarding, so I can't really comment about the rest of the team.

Caroline Calve is Algonquin and is competing in Parralell snowboard GS.

One of my good friends has been involved in creating the First Nations Snowboard Team, they're doing really positive work. They've already had some team members medal in the Canadian championships, which is pretty damn impressive for a segment of the population which has very little history in the sport.
http://www.fnriders.com/about.php

They'll undoubtedly be a lot stronger in Sochi and beyond.

Scott, which segment of the population has a "history " in a 20 year old sport?

[quote]Hopefully the Olympics will have some impact on the national stereotyping of Vancouver and British Columbia, although I doubt it, because these things have a life of their own.[/quote] peter O

NBC took a swing at the PC/green folk in Vancouver. Bob Costas Sports anchor, who never says anything bad about anything (ON air), & NBC News Anchor Brian Williams...Critiqued the petty demonstrations & the Zamboni, that wasn't. It was aimed at the twits

BTW
My Hockey Girls (USA) are going to take the Gold!
They are too fast for the Canadian Oldies; they will just see a blur followed by a blur...It's called a swarm...

Snowboarding has been around since the 1960's so I'm not really sure what your trying to get at by being so dismissive.

Regardless most of the top riders come from mountain towns. Like hockey and skiing it can be an expensive sport. There's certainly a social and cultural element as well, if your family and peers don't snowboard it's pretty unlikely you'll start by yourself.

So I suppose in the crudest sense the answer is rich white people, but that's changing. A lot of kids ride in their city limits hitting features, and handrails nowadays, which is a lot cheaper then a lift ticket.

It's a sport that's growing, certainly a lot faster then skiing. Without snowboarding you'd have a lot more ski hills out of business.

500,000 people in this country play organized hockey ever year, while 1,000,000 snowboard each year, so it's hardly an insignificant portion of the population.

All in all I think giving aboriginal kids the opportunity to snowboard and excel at it is a positive.

Here's a little history on Canadian snowboarding from Westbeach, the first snowboard shop in Canada founded 31 years ago, considered an institution today.

http://30.westbeach.com/about/