Moseley Gets His Shot at Big Target and Scores a Bull’s-Eye

It figured to be a shootout between top qualifier Jonny Moseley of the United States and Jean-Luc Brassard of Canada here Wednesday in the men’s mogul finals of freestyle skiing.

But Brassard misfired, just as he had in Sunday’s qualifying, and Moseley, of Tiburon, Calif., shot nothing but bull’s-eyes, giving the United States its first gold medal of these XVIII Winter Olympics.

Re-creating his qualifying run, Moseley routed the field, winning by nearly a full point over Janne Lahtela of Finland. More commonly, hundredths of points separate the top skiers.

Another Finn, Sami Mustonen finished third, and Brassard, last year’s World Cup champion, was fourth.

And what Moseley did, he did with a flair made for freestyle skiing, scoring highest across the board, in turns, aerial maneuvers and time. Mogul skiers race down a curse of snow bumps and perform tricks off two jumps along the way.

“I never thought this could happen,” said an overwhelmed Moseley. “I worked so hard for this. It’s great to represent a country like the United States.”

The U.S. had a medal chance in the women’s finals, too, but 1992 champion Donna Weinbrecht, the top qualifier, let her skis get apart for an instant on the bottom third of the run and had to settle for fourth, behind surprise champion Tae Satoya of Japan, the people’s choice here, Tatjana Mittermayer of Germany, and Kari Traa of Norway.

Brassard, skiing 10th in the 16-skier field, led briefly after his run, Mustonen knocked him down to second, then Lahtela, the second-last skier, took them both down a peg.

That left it all for Moseley. And he took it.

Legs pumping like twin pistons, he skimmed down the upper portion, launched smoothly into his first jump, a double-twister spread, landed cleanly and was off into the second jump, his trademark helicopter, iron-cross grab. While making a full revolution in the air, he crosses his skis, then bends and grabs his left ski.

“It was a high-risk move, but I knew I had to take the risk,” he said. “But it isn’t as risky as doing it in the semifinals, ‘cause if you miss it there, you’re out.

“When I landed the helly, I knew I was golden. Then it was just a matter of standing up and not slowing to the finish. It was an unbelievable feeling. This was as perfect as you can expect for an Olympic run.”

Brassard had skied a great run himself, but that was in pre-race practice, and his competitive run was considerably off that performance. So Moseley knew at the start of his that the gold was his for the taking.

“I wasn’t thinking about that, though,” he said. “I was just concentrating on doing what I wanted to do. I wasn’t nervous then, but I was mogul skiing when I woke up this morning. My legs were twitching, my hamstrings. Things were working already. I was just trying to calm down. Then, when I got out here on the course, I felt at home.”

The competition went about as he’d thought it would,” he said.

“I expected that someone out of the [last] six would take the lead, and then it wold change hands a few times. Skating last, I knew I had to walk out the crowd and put down a run I could happy with. I tried to stay focused and concentrate on doing what I had trained to do.”

Alex Wilson, Moseley’s roommate and 10th-place finisher here, said both he and Moseley had spent a restless night.

“We both woke up a couple of times,” he said. “It was a long time to wait, from Sunday to today.”

Weinbrecht cried after her run, realizing that she would have won at least the bronze, had she skied cleanly.

“I just had the misfortune of bobbling right in front of the judges,” she said. “For me, I can’t do that. They saw that and . . . “

Other U.S. skiers finished back in the pack. Wilson was 10th among the men, Liz McIntyre eighth and Ann Battelle 10th among the women.