Sports, like life, can be unforgiving. If anyone in the world of sports knows what that is like, it would be Lindsey Jacobellis.
Ms. Jacobellis is the most decorated snowboard cross athlete of all time (snowboard cross is a competition involving going downhill among turns and jumps). Her longevity and continued success is a testament to her work ethic and her natural talent. But, as is too often the case in the world of public opinion, a single misstep that accounted for mere milliseconds has long been the haunting taunt of her career.
In 2006, during the snowboard cross event at the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, Ms. Jacobellis had a commanding lead over the three other contestants. The speed and turns had thrown two off the track, and Swiss snowboarder Tanja Frieden lagged behind in second. But in the second to last jump, only seconds from the finish line, the inexplicable happened.
Ms. Jacobellis grabbed her board to perform a move called a method. It is a relatively simple and common trick. But she hadn’t planned for it. It was muscle memory taking over, and she fell. As reliable and absolutely necessary as muscle memory is in sports, in that moment, it failed her.
“I spent a lot of time in therapy trying to find out the root cause of what really happened, and I couldn’t come up with anything other than it was that lapse in judgment—just dropping the ball, whatever sports metaphor there is,” Ms. Jacobellis said in an interview. “It was just something that happened that I can’t actually look back and understand why.” At the time, the general consensus in the sports world was that it was showboating gone horribly wrong. But for anyone with a keen eye, it appeared as if she tried to restrain the move while performing it: a decisive moment filled with indecision.
For athletes competing at the highest levels—and one cannot reach higher than the Olympics—a misstep, an injury, a malfunction can leave a searing mark that may never heal. When that mark is self-inflicted, the healing process becomes even more difficult. These are traumatic moments that leave athletes haunted by what-ifs. Ms. Jacobellis, then 20 years old, was not given a moment to gather her thoughts. Reeling from the disaster, trying to understand the moment while still in it, she was bombarded by journalists with probing questions.
“I had media training, and they want you to be articulate and to make sure you are representing your country well and are being a good sport,” she recalled. “So I’m proceeding through this procession of one after another. You’re trying to be a good sport while at the same time trying to understand what actually happened. [In those interviews,] you can see that I’m sort of all over the place. I was not giving a different excuse, but a different response with each interview, which only opened me up for more ridicule.”
In her new book scheduled for release in October, entitled “Unforgiving,” Ms. Jacobellis documents her journey of self-discovery following the incident. The adjective accurately defines the sport, and in many ways, defines Ms. Jacobellis’s 16-year period. “Snowboard cross is an unforgiving sport. It keeps you honest, and it keeps you guessing, and it keeps you striving,” she wrote in the book.
For many, “redemption” might seem fitting, but she said that word was never considered as a potential title for her book. “Redemption. It’s not about that. It was never about that,” she said. “At the core, I kept doing it because I was a competitor, not because I was seeking redemption. It wasn’t about proving anything to anyone. It was about me not giving up on myself.”
Dealing With the Ridicule
The ridicule was not fair, nor was it short-lived. As the years progressed and Ms. Jacobellis continued to compete, and even win, the critics rarely provided much room between the present moment and 2006. The critics weren’t always only sports commentators. “There was a time from 2006 till 2010 where my mother did all of my fan mail. There were a lot of people still excited about writing to me and wanting an autograph, but there was also hate mail,” she said. “My mom would save the really nice ones and tell me, ‘Read this. You are still an inspiration and you are still striving and competing to go to another Olympics.’ She would throw the bad ones away and not tell me.”
Coming back from various injuries, some potentially career-ending, she competed in the next four Olympics. Over the course of those 16 years between Torino and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, her dominance in the sport of snowboarding, specifically snowboard cross, continued. She was a 10-time X Games gold medalist, a 31-time World Cup gold medalist, a six-time World Champion, a five-time Olympian, and an Olympic silver medalist.
To reach the heights that Ms. Jacobellis has reached, one must dedicate oneself wholeheartedly to the sport without hesitation. With an undaunted will and passion, she proved, not so much to others, like the critics and naysayers, but to herself that she could still compete and win.
“It is difficult for someone to understand what an athlete goes through―the setbacks and the frustrations. People don’t see how we work out and train behind the scenes. They only see the Instagram moments when you’re pushing that personal best on the squat rack, or you’re crushing it in your cardio or your hurdles; but they’re not showing those in-between times where you’ve been struggling to meet those goals, and failing to meet those goals, and yet you’re still pushing,” Ms. Jacobellis said.
Confronting Her Story
As the years progressed and Ms. Jacobellis continued to dominate the sport, she was approached with the suggestion of writing a book to tell her story. For certain, having her story constantly told through the perspective of other people was an irritant, but the timing for writing something herself never seemed right—until recently.
“I wasn’t done snowboarding,” she said. “It didn’t make sense to write my story when I’m still living my story.”
Part of that story had less to do with competing against others and more to do with competing against herself. Her body no doubt continued to suffer physical damage, but she had also suffered emotional damage, which was a hurdle she had to overcome, not for the sake of her career, but for her own well-being.
For years, she tried to move past 2006. By focusing on the next race, perhaps she could position herself far enough from that haunting moment and people would ignore those swirling ghosts. But as each passing Olympics ended with her missing the gold, she knew the damage had to be addressed.
“Time helps, but that’s not necessarily the only cure,” she said in reference to the adage that time heals all wounds. “For me, time was not proving itself. I did need time, but I also needed something else.” That “something else” took place during those moments when no one was watching. When the cameras weren’t rolling. When a social media post wasn’t even a consideration. This is when Ms. Jacobellis dealt with the most important thing.
“When I started working with my mental coach, it really helped me unpack the emotions,” she recalled. “As a competitor, you are trying to separate yourself from emotion because you are focusing on the task at hand. That was also hindering my growth because I wasn’t appreciating that I was having some kind of reaction and I needed to understand that fully. I struggled with a lot of mixed emotions,” she said. She was reminded of what her mother once told her: “‘Sometimes we don’t understand why certain things happen, and it doesn’t become obvious until years down the road.’”
Never Giving Up
Ms. Jacobellis eventually found a new perspective to the moment that had defined her. That perspective came from a drive that had been instilled in her from childhood.
“I had been taught not to give up. I wanted to fight through my setbacks to see what I could accomplish because I owed it to myself not to give up,” she said. She realized that the 2006 incident was what allowed her to grow. “It led me to all these other incredible people, other opportunities, and to be this inspirational voice now. Sometimes it’s so hard to see in the moment―when that moment goes completely wrong―to appreciate what growth could come from that moment,” she said. But she realized her path toward acceptance and forgiveness had become “so much of the core of who I’ve become as an athlete and as an individual.”
Her perseverance in both the sport and life has paid off. In 2022, at the Beijing Winter Olympics, she accomplished her crowning achievement: taking gold in the snowboard cross.
“There are so many things that could go wrong that it makes it even more exciting when it finally comes together and goes right,” she said. Throughout her career, there were times when she wanted to give up the sport. “It would come down to, I’m a competitor. I love doing this. I love what it feels like when it finally comes together. In Beijing, everything finally aligned for me.”
Beijing was her fifth Olympics and, at 37, may possibly be her last. For those on the outside looking in, it may have seemed like a legacy-defining moment. But that was for those who had only followed her, and defined her, according to her Olympic career, instead of a lifetime of high achievements and perseverance under the sport’s constant grind. More importantly, for Ms. Jacobellis, winning gold had no longer become a necessity.
“I had the attitude going into Beijing that if I didn’t medal, I would be okay,” she said. “The journey was about finding out who I truly was, and not just about getting that golden moment.”
The Golden Moment
When she did get that golden moment, she used the turn that competitors take up the hill after a race as a moment to reflect. She said it wasn’t just a victory lap, but a moment for her to process what had just transpired, before meeting the press—something she didn’t get to do in 2006.
Ms. Jacobellis shared that she chose to finally write a book about her journey, not because of what took place in 2006 or in 2022, but rather what took place in between those years. She wrote it because she knows that unforgiving moments can happen to athletes who strive for greatness. Indeed, those moments can happen to anyone.
“It only takes a moment of being distracted to completely derail you,” she said. “I want anyone else struggling with setbacks to know that they need to understand those moments and find a way to work through them and find a path to forgiveness.”
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
