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Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis on Chile, Locks of Love and Toucan Sam
By Doug Haney // usolympicteam.com // October 20, 2003
U.S. Snowboard Team rookie Lindsey Jacobellis, 18, can’t decide whether to be a halfpipe rider or concentrate on snowboard cross – so she owns them both. Last season, Jacobellis was a top-five staple on the Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix, landed the first female 900 in competition and won both the Junior World halfpipe crown. She also won SBX at the X Games and nabbed the U.S. SBX title before opening ‘03/’04 with a trip to Chile for her first senior World Cup and came home with a second place finish in the halfpipe – unfortunately SBX was cancelled. Jacobellis is a Stratton Mountain School rider and credits her older brother Ben with getting her involved in snowboarding in 1996 – and she's taken it from there. After unpacking from South America, she took some time to chat with usolympicteam.com about her first World Cup finals (Sept. 13 in Chile), her Locks of Love project and, among other things, her newest best friend, Toucan Sam.
Q1: You’re first senior World Cup (Sept. 13 in Chile) and you took second – did you expect to be on the podium?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: Not at all, I was just hoping to make finals and when I barely got in, that was victory enough for me. Then I had a crappy score in my first finals run and I couldn’t figure out why it was so bad, so I just went back up saying that I was going to land a crippler seven.
Q2: And you did…
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: I nailed it and then ran over to my mom to give her a big hug without even looking at my score, so I didn’t actually know that I had taken over second.
Q3: What did your mom say?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: She said, “I watched you,” and gave me a big smile. My mom hates to watch me ride, especially SBX because she is so scared to see me get hurt – she just likes to watch me make it over the finish line.
Q4: Did you get to enjoy any of the Chilean culture while you where there?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: Yeah, it was so beautiful, but I had a real problem with their food because the meat is cooked so different so I just ate a lot of pasta and Fruit Loops because it was the only American food that I saw while I was there.
Q5: Did you eat Fruit Loops every morning for breakfast?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: Yup
Q6: If Kellogg’s called you up and wanted to put you on a Fruit Loops box, would you take the deal?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: (Laughs) Dude, that could work, but I don’t think Toucan Sam would want to share the spotlight. I’ve never seen anybody else on the box other than Toucan.
Q7: I understand you’ve donated some of your hair to an organization called Locks of Love, what is that?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: It’s an organization that takes donations of hair and makes them into wigs for cancer patients. My neighbor lost her hair to chemotherapy and a friend that I grew up with donated her hair to Locks of Love to support my neighbor and I thought it was a great idea.
Q8: You have long and curly hair, how much did you cut?
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: A gave a full ten inches because I have more than plenty. It was really weird at first because it was so extreme, but now I can do all sorts of different styles that I wasn’t able to do before, but I just feel fortunate that I was able to help someone else.
Q9: When the Olympics start to creep up, will you have to decide to focus on halfpipe or SBX.
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: I don’t think so, I think that I can go to the Olympics in both disciplines, which would be pretty cool. Halfpipe is sometimes frustrating but it’s still fun and SBX is the best because of the adrenaline rush that you get from going as fast as you can on a board.
Q10: Your brother Ben is the one that got you involved in snowboarding and is also one of the countries top SBX racers, what would it be like if both of you made the 2006 Olympic team.
LINDSEY JACOBELLIS: It would be the perfect story for TV.
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