2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy For the Grays on Trays, there's little chance that any of us will be interested in duplicating the stunts and feats of competitive athletes who are in many cases decades younger than us. But there's no denying that high-level competitors can put on a good show. Grays on Trays at the Olympics? Were there in fact Grays on Trays at the Olympics? It's not likely that anyone who has taken up snowboarding (or any sport) after turning 30 has risen to this level of competition. Still, fully one quarter (12) of the finalists in the three Olympic events in snowboarding were 30 or older. In other words, the old folks can still play. Men's Halfpipe The halfpipe is the domain of the young man (and woman). Among men, the oldest athlete in the field of 12 finalists was Crispin Lipscomb, who was 26. Linpscomb, a Canadian, finished 11th. GOLD: Shaun White (USA) SILVER: Danny Kass (USA) BRONZE: Markku Koski (Finland) Here is a link to the scoreboard for the finals. Note that each competitor took two trips through the halfpipe. Their results are listed in the "Score" box under the heading "Run 1" and "Run 2." The best of the two runs for each contestant counts. Click here for qualification run 1 results. Click here for results from qualification run 2. Ladies' Halfpipe Among the final field of 12, two ladies were over 29. Soko Yamaoka finished 10th and Chikako Fushimi finished 12th. Both were 31 at the competition, and both are from Japan. There were 34 athletes who qualified for the Olympic halfpipe competition. GOLD: Hannah Teter (USA) SILVER: Gretchen Bleiler (USA) BRONZE: Krersti Buaas (Norway) Here are the scores after the second run in the finals; the "final" final scores if you will. Click here for results from qualifying run 1, and here for results from qualifying run 2. Rules for Halfpipe Competition If you're looking for the rules of Olympic halfpipe competition, you can find them on the Olympic web site. What follows is a summary of the information there. The pipe is "approximately 135-145 m long," which for Americans means 147 yards, or roughly one football field and a half. It has a gradient of 16 to 17 percent. By our estimates, that puts it in the range of easier blue terrain in the U.S. Rockies. (We could be way off on this. If someone has solid information with some examples, please let us know!) Competitors will cross the pipe, from side to side, six to eight times during a run. Five judges evaluate the run. Criteria for judging include: standard air (jumping out of the pipe without tricks); number and quality of turns; number of falls; amplitude (amount of air during tricks). Riders are evaluated on their "best of two" scores for both the qualifying runs and the finals. Men's Snowboard Cross The eight finalists included three men 30 or older: Jordi Font (30, Spain, 4th); Jasey Jay Anderson (30, Canada, 5th); and Dieter Krassnig (32, Germany, 8th). The winner, Seth Wescott, was 6 months shy of 29. GOLD: Seth Wescott (USA) SILVER: Radoslav Zidek (Slovakia) BRONZE: Paul-Henri Delerue (France) The medals are awarded after the "Big Final." Results for that, and other races, are available here. Full results are available through this page. Ladies' Snowboard Cross With age comes victory? Gold medalist Tanja Frieden was the only 30-year old or better member of the final field of 8. GOLD: Tanja Frieden (Switzerland) SILVER: Lindsey Jacobellis (USA) BRONZE: Dominique Maltais (Canada) The medals are awarded after the "Big Final." Results for that, and other races, are available here. Full results are available through this page. Men's Parallel Grand Slalom The men's PGS is a place where the 30-and-up shine, taking fully one-half of the final 8 positions. The over-the-hill gang that went quickly down the hill include: Siegfried Grabner (30, Austria, 3rd); Mathieu Bozzetto (32, France, 4th); Dejan Kosir (33, Slovakia, 6th); and Gilles Jaquet (31, Switzerland, 8th). GOLD: Philipp Schoch (Switzerland) SILVER: Simon Schoch (Switzerland) BRONZE: Siegfried Grabner (Austria) Schoch and Schoch are, as you might suspect, brothers. A full listing of the results for the men's PGS is available here. Ladies' Parallel Grand Slalom Finally, two of the eight finalists in the ladies' PGS were over 29: Rosie Fletcher, a 30-year old from the USA, took the bronze. Ursula Bruhin, a 35-year old Swiss, finished 7th. GOLD: Daniela Meuli (Switzerland) SILVER: Amelie Kober (Germany) BRONZE: Rosey Fletcher (USA) A full listing of the results for ladies' PGS is available here. Official Rules A summary of the rules for each of the events in Olympic snowboarding--halfpipe, boardercross, and parallel giant slalom--can be found here. Did you know that each national team is limited to 14 athletes, with no more than 4 participating in any event? Read up on rules for each team here. Snowboarding enters the Olympics You might think that when they were given the opportunity to participate in the Olympics for the first time (Nagano, Japan, 1998), there would be widespread joy in the ranks of elite snowboarders. After all, the invitation represented a stamp of acceptability to what had been in the past either an oddity or an outcast. With Olympic exposure, millions of people would see just what snowboarding was, with their own eyes. But you would be mistaken. Terje Haakonsen, for example, was a snowboarder on the level of Michael Jordan in his sport. He refused to participate, and staged a sparsely attended alternative event instead. Haakonsen even compared the International Olympic Committee, the IOC, to the Mafia. Others were sympathetic to his stance. What was that all about? Some experienced riders objected to the idea of competition at all. Others did not like the fact that the IOC recognized the FIS (the world ski organization), rather than the International Snowboarding Federation (ISF), as the gateway to the games. By the lights of the critics, snowboarding was all about anti-skiing--or at least being not at all like skiing. Being absorbed into it was an assault on snowboarders. But the FIS has become the gateway, and in 2002, the ISF folded. Some snowboarders, trumpeting the idea that riding is a lifestyle and not "merely" a sport, complained about the alleged stifling of creativity through requirements to wear national uniforms, train with national coaches, and the like. All this violates the "soul" of snowboarding, they said. And more than one voice was raised against drug testing policies. As if to confirm the stereotypes of snowboarders, the first winner in the men's competition, Ross Rebagliati, was temporarily stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for pot. (He received his medal back, on procedural grounds, though he also disputed the allegation that he had recently smoked marijuana.) But today, a peace endures, as leading U.S. athletes strive to make the Olympic team, not reject it. Good things about the Olympics It's a place to showcase a sport to the casual audience. It's exposure for a sport that does not, for all its use in advertising, get much coverage for its competitive events. Bad things about the Olympics Loads of commercials. Capitalism generates wealth, and commercial advertising pays the bills, but this many? Promotional ads for network programs. How many times can you stand to hear about a new show doomed to failure? Snow sports get crowded out by ice dancing, ice skating, and so forth. Events are often shown after they actually took place. The Olympics events are run by bureaucracies that are slow to move and adjust; events featured in the games may not be those most popular within North America. Three hours of figure skating for 10 minutes of snowboarding, complete with TV schedules with very large (3-4 hour) windows. The brotherhood-of-man stuff is so much nonsense; just give us the games! Links The official web site of the games Return to the Grays on Trays home page.