TORINO: Snowboard: Teter, Bleiler match the men; take gold, silver in halfpipe

TORINO: Snowboard: Teter, Bleiler match the men; take gold, silver in halfpipeBARDONECCHIA, Italy – Not to be outdone by the boys, Hannah Teter won gold and Gretchen Bleiler won silver in the halfpipe Monday – another set of Olympic medals for the United States – and Kjersti Buaas of Norway won the bronze.

Teter and Bleiler, the top two women in a distinctly American sport, dominated every part of the snowboarding event, from qualifying through finals, and gave the United States four of the possible six medals over two days of snowboarding in sunny Bardonecchia .

“I guess I was kind of distracted at the beginning,” Teter said. “Then I chilled out and made it. It’s amazing.”

A day earlier, it was Shaun White and Danny Kass finishing 1-2, with Mason Aguirre in fourth.

“USA. Representing,” Bleiler said. “We’re doing a good job. That’s about all I can say.”

And just like White and Kass, the women came painfully close to a sweep. Kelly Clark got bumped out of the third spot after Buaas had one of the runs of her life. Clark, the 2002 gold medalist, fell in her attempt to land a 2 1/2-spin jump at the end.

When Clark, Bleiler and Teter finished 1-2-3 in qualifying, it became clear the sweep would be America’s to lose. Clark flew higher than anyone off the halfpipe, while Bleiler’s landings were smoother and Teter’s tricks were more technical than anyone’s.

Teter’s road to victory was also a lot like White’s.

Riding with the cords from her iPod dangling, she scored a 44.6 on her first run to take the lead, an advantage that none of the other 11 riders could match. It made her second trip, soaring through the pipe and into the sunshine of the Italian Alps, a victory lap – just like White’s the day before. After bouncing up and down and jiggling her legs at the top, she raised her hands, then scored a 46.4 on the strength of a frontside 540 followed by a frontside 900.

“I just kind of felt the same standing up there,” Teter said. “It’s like, ‘Here we go again, another run on the pipe but at the Olympics.’ I just felt super positive.”

Buaas said she was trying her best to keep in touch with the Americans, despite their technical superiority.

“All of Europe is depending on me,” Buaas said of her thoughts before taking off for her final run. “I got speed and tried to go big because they have so many tricks and I don’t.”

The other qualifiers from the morning round were Cheryl Maas of the Netherlands, Shiho Nakashima of Japan and Doriane Vidal of France. Australia’s Torah Bright made it into the second round.

Early in the second round of qualifying, Melo Imai of Japan took a nasty fall while trying to complete an inverted frontside 720. Imai, who has a World Cup halfpipe win this season, was diagnosed with an injured torso and abdomen. She briefly lost consciousness but was able to walk off the halfpipe with help. Later, she was strapped into a stretcher and flown by helicopter to a Torino hospital for observation.

The unprecedented Olympic success of the American snowboarders has helped bring the sport into the mainstream.

“I remember going to get my hair done,” a few weeks after the U.S. sweep (at Salt Lake 2002],” Bleiler said. “The 60-year-old women in the salon were in there talking about snowboarding. It’s not a cutthroat sport at all. We’re all cheering each other on. Together, we’re progressing the sport.”

The 24-year-old Bleiler is no stranger to sexy photo shoots and could probably find a career in modeling when the snowboarding is over.

But cocky she is not.

Her motivation for these Olympics came from the heartbreak of 2002, when she tied for the final spot on the Olympic team but lost out on the third tiebreaker. It made her journey to this point, and the success she finally enjoyed, a nerve-racking ride with a sweet conclusion.

“I get so nervous, and especially for this event,” Bleiler said. “I told my coach, ‘I don’t want to care this much. I don’t want to care this much.’ But that’s what happens when you work for a goal your entire life.”

Teter, meanwhile, is an unabashed goofball – all giggles, full of mumbled, stream-of-consciousness answers.

The 19-year-old lists one of her favorite hobbies as making maple syrup from trees near her home in Vermont. Her two brothers also are on the U.S. snowboard team and the oldest manages what they call Team Teter. Teter says her competitive spirit came from hangin’ with the boys – jumping on the trampoline, seeing who can hold their breath the longest underwater.

She plans to staple her new gold medal to the wall of the playhouse where she and her brothers hang out.

“I’m gonna staple it in with a real staplegun,” she said.

And how will being an Olympic champion change her life?

“Maybe I’ll get to buy a boat,” she said. “I’m still going to be laid back. I’m still going to be grateful.”

Though the athletes have taken different paths to this point, they were similar in that they both chose to skip the X Games last month to better prepare for the Olympics.

“The Olympics is the biggest event, period,” Bleiler said. “The X Games are the biggest event in snowboarding.”

And the United States is best in both – a conclusion nobody can deny and one the Americans don’t shirk from, even though it’s a sport that proclaims to be more about camaraderie than competition.

“We definitely get in other teams’ heads,” U.S. snowboarding coach Bud Keene said. “When we come into a halfpipe competition, we’re rolling in like a freight train.

“You see the way they ride – it’s head and shoulders above the rest of the competitors.”

– The Associated Press