Switzerland’s Michael Schmid takes gold in inaugural Olympic skicross event

Schmid takes gold in 1st Olympic skicross event

WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Olympic debut of skicross began with America’s grizzled old veteran landing hard on his back and ended with one of Canada’s newest favorites tumbling uncontrollably through the powder.

When all the bumping and crashing was over Sunday, Michael Schmid of Switzerland was still standing — the first Olympic gold medalist in a sport that entertains the fans as much as it hurts the skiers.

“Today was almost perfect,” Schmid said. “I had very fast skis and all the small things were great.”

Schmid easily outpaced Austria’s Andreas Matt and Norway’s Audun Groenvold in the final, while Chris Del Bosco, a Colorado resident who competes for Canada, let third place slip when he got too aggressive on the next-to-last jump and went flailing, then falling out of contention.

Much earlier, American Daron Rahlves lost any chance for the medal that has eluded him in three previous Olympics in Alpine.

One of the United States’ most decorated downhillers, the 36-year-old Rahlves collided with France’s Ted Piccard and landed hard on his back in the day’s opening race. He got up, skied to the finish, then writhed in pain at the bottom — a painful end to both his day, and his career.

“That’s it for me,” he said.

Hard to imagine too many of the 32 skiers who started the day would be eager to rush right back out there.

This is a brutal, free-for-all of a sport, with four men and their eight skis and eight poles screaming down the mountain for each race, all of them seeking the perfect lines and taking not-so-perfect chances when desperation sets in.

Skicross is the cousin of snowboardcross, which made its Olympic debut to rave reviews in 2006. Wanting more of the same, the International Olympic Committee figured ‘Why not?’ and brought skicross in for this year.

The first two races of the day showed why.

Rahlves’ wreck opened the proceedings and was followed shortly by a dust-up between Anders Rekdal, who fell in the path of Simon Stickl, sending him spinning and allowing Canadian Davey Barr and Errol Kerr, a New Yorker who trains in California and competes for Jamaica, to advance.

Winners in skicross are, quite often, the ones who take all the fun out of it, and Schmid did just that.

He finished with the fastest time in qualifying, then won all four of his races without much of a fight. He won the first two World Cup events of the season, came into the Olympics ranked No. 1 and couldn’t find much of a challenge on a sunny, springlike day at Cypress Mountain.

“He’s a damn good skier,” Groenvold said. “He had good equipment and he’s a good skier. There was a lot of things going on.”

Schmid’s victory put a damper on the next chapter of Del Bosco’s remarkable comeback story.

Addicted to drugs and alcohol four years ago, his sister intervened and got him into rehab, telling him he was running out of chances to turn his life around.

A man who was once lying in a ditch with a broken neck, almost sure to die had a passerby not rescued him, found himself two good jumps away from an Olympic bronze medal. Or maybe silver. Del Bosco was trying to pass Groenvold down the stretch, but got out of whack and took a gruesome tumble down the second-to-last big hill.

“That’s pretty typical Del Bosco fashion right there,” said his teammate, Davey Barr. “Leave it to the last minute and try to make it all happen. More often than not, he actually does it.”

Not this time, though.

Not for American Casey Puckett, either.

At his fifth Olympics, Puckett, like Rahlves, was trying to put an exclamation point on an Alpine career that has moved over to skicross for one last chance at an Olympic medal.

Like Rahlves, who disclocated his hip three weeks ago, Puckett came to Vancouver dinged up — recovering from a badly separated shoulder.

And like Rahlves, Puckett finished last in his opening race, though didn’t have to endure any physical punishment on his trip down the mountain — which some days in the wild sport of skicross can feel like a victory, even if it’s not accompanied by a gold medal.

“I hope people were” entertained, Schmid said. “The skicross was good for the people. There were a lot of fights.”