Stylin ain't so Golden

"Guess who gave away the gold?"

In the true spirit of the Olympic Games, snowboardcross rider Lindsey Jacobellis was rewarded for her performance on Friday with a silver medal. We call it a reward, because Jacobellis should have been handed the first plane ticket out of Italy for pulling off one of the biggest blunders in Olympic history. Leading the women’s snowboardcross final by a lengthy margin, Jacobellis decided to showboat on one of the last jumps, but she biffed.

The mistake cost her the gold medal, which went to Switzerland’s Tanja Frieden, who slipped past the fallen in disbelief as the American scrambled to get back into the race. Jacobellis had such a huge lead that she managed to get back up and still beat the eventual bronze medalist, Canadian Dominique Maltais.

U.S. coach Peter Foley and the throngs of supporter also couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

"She definitely styled that a little too hard," he said.

Foley calls it “stying”, the host Italians call is “stupido”. After being featured predominantly in a Visa commercial leading up to the games, we’re wondering if the credit card company is going to ask for a refund?