BONGPYEONG, South Korea — Shout it from the top of Mount Werner: Gold wins bronze!
Arielle Gold added another medal to the long, rich Olympic legacy of Steamboat Springs by finishing third Tuesday in the highest-flying, most gravity-defying halfpipe competition that women have ever waged on snowboards.
“I’m sure Steamboat is proud … To bring home a medal to a town that has given me so much is amazing,” said Gold, who’s 14-karat Colorado to the core.
Here’s all you need to know about her Rocky Mountain cred. When I walked up to Gold late last week to inquire about her Olympic dreams, she insisted on asking me a question before starting our conversation about snowboarding.
“So,” Gold said, her voice stern and direct, with a no-messing-around tone, “who’s going to be the next starting quarterback for my Broncos?”
She won Olympic bronze for Broncos Country, which, as we all well know, hasn’t had a lot of bright, shiny moments to smile about of late.
In a situation where it would have been oh-so-easy for Gold to fold, she was a rock star. And maybe that’s the real victory here.
While snowboarding is known for that easy what-up-bruh vibe, Gold is anything but a carefree kid at age 21. Truth be known, she’s a little hard on herself, with an inner voice that sometimes criticizes so pointedly that it drives out some of the joy in grabbing big air on a board.
“That’s just who I am,” Gold said. “I’ve always been hard on myself.”
The last place a competitor wants to be in a snowboard competition is first to drop in the pipe. Judges, being human, like to save their best scores for later. Gold batted lead-off among the 12 Olympic finalists. And the pressure showed on her first run, as Gold was unable to land the 1080, three-rotation trick essential to reaching the podium in a rapidly evolving sport.
Heading into her third and final shot at a medal, the scores posted on the board in front of Gold were daunting, with the best riders in the world, including Liu Jiayu of China, as well as U.S. teammates Chloe Kim and Kelly Clark with an iron grip on the top three spots in this competition.
Staring into the halfpipe, with all her Olympic dreams riding non a single run, Gold had a quiet, little talk with herself.
“Right before I was dropping in, things were pretty quiet up there,” she said. “But what I was trying to tell myself at the top were positive mantras: ‘Still got this … One more run … Leave it all out there … No holding back.’”
With the pressure on, however, Gold did not blink. Her 1080 was big and beautiful, almost as magnificent as the triumphant smile she flashed when her score of 85.75 lit up the scoreboard. Kim won gold. Liu took silver. Gold refused to beat herself.
Gold had to go. There was a bronze medal to collect. A story of beating whispers of doubt, fear and negativity to be told 1,000 more times in front of television cameras. Toasts to be raised with family and friends.
Before marching away from the halfpipe she conquered, I had one more important question for Gold.
Who should be the next starting quarterback of her beloved Denver Broncos?
“Kirk Cousins,” said Gold, smiling like a champion.