Getting a Buzz

Having bought into the Winter Olympic experience, halfpipe snowboarders had their chance Thursday to find out who among them were swifter, higher, stronger.

But in the halfpipe specialists’ first opportunity to gain widespread exposure around the world, most of the media were focused only on who was high.

For the first Olympic gold medalists in the discipline, Switzerland’s Gian Gimmen in the men’s competition and Germany’s Nicola Thost in the women’s, that was too bad.

They at least had the undivided attention of the judges, who scored them highest for the skateboard-like tricks they performed in categories such as rotations, amplitude, landings and technical merit.

Shannon Dunn of Steamboat Springs, Colo., and Ross Powers of South Londonderry, Vt., won bronze medals. Cara-Beth Burnside of Orange finished fourth among the women.

All earned raves from the spectators. Relatively large considering the cold, snow and sleet they had to brave at the Kanbayashi Snowboard Park and definitely enthusiastic, the crowd was less discriminating than the judges, oohing and aahing at every trick.

Now, International Olympic Committee officials can only cross their fingers and hope that none of the competitors tested positive, especially if the offending drug is as controversial as marijuana.

A debate has raged here over whether the IOC overstepped its boundaries, moving from the sports arena to a social one, when it stripped Canadian Ross Rebagliati of his gold medal because he tested positive for marijuana after winning the snowboard giant slalom.

It was a close call. The IOC’s medical commission voted 13-12 and the executive board voted 3-2 with two abstentions to sanction Rebagliati.

Some officials expected the decision to be overturned as early as Thursday night after Rebagliati took his case to the Committee for the Arbitration of Sport.

The media weren’t the only ones drawing attention to the situation. After he finished his first run, Canadian Michael Michalchuck held up a sign that read: “Ross Is The Champion. Give the Gold Back.”

Not all the snowboarders agreed. “Didn’t he know marijuana was on the banned list?” asked Norway’s Anne Molin Kongsgaard. “I don’t think he should be a hero.”

It was, however, the prevailing sentiment. Many snowboarders like to consider themselves rebels as compared to other world-class athletes. Now they are rebels with a cause.

“It’s ridiculous,” Burnside said of the IOC’s decision. “Everyone was just furious with it. He wasn’t doing anything that was affecting his performance.

“I mean, come on, they’re kicking people out for cough medicine.”

Canada’s Tara Teigen used the dreaded b-word, boycott, saying that she and her teammates met Wednesday night to decide whether to compete.

“It made us think about whether we wanted to drop in today,” she said.

She believed Rebagliati’s argument that he tested positive because he was exposed to second-hand smoke. He said he hasn’t smoked marijuana since April.

“Who comes to the Olympics and wants to test positive?” Teigen said. “That would be stupid.

“We’ve all been in rooms with pot smoke. But none of us want to jeopardize our careers and medals.”

Don Catlin, an IOC medical commission member from Los Angeles, said it’s possible but not likely that Rebagliati’s positive test, measured at 17.8 nanograms per milliliter, was the result of exposure to marijuana smoke.

Catlin, who operated the drug-testing laboratory for the 1984 Summer Games, didn’t reveal how he voted, but he said the argument by those who favored sanctions was that Olympic athletes should avoid contact with street drugs, whether or not they’re using them.

They could be in for a fight with the snowboarders, many of whom resisted inclusion in the Olympics because they had to adapt to standards of the International Ski Federation instead of their own governing body, the International Snowboard Federation.

Switzerland’s Anita Schwaller said: “They wanted snowboarding in the Olympics, and they know snowboarding is a little more liberal than other sports. It wasn’t the snowboarders who wanted to be here.”

Not all snowboarders, however, embrace that image, and they are concerned that this incident will reinforce it.

“It’s happening in other sports,” Dunn said. “It’s not a sport thing. It’s a personal thing. You can’t stereotype all snowboarders because of it.”

Asked how snowboarders relax between runs, Teigen, jokingly, said, “Is that a trick question?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MEDALISTS

Snowboarding

MEN’S HALFPIPE

Gold: Gian Simmen, Switzerland

Silver: Daniel Franck, Norway

Bronze: Ross Powers U.S.

WOMEN’S HALFPIPE

Gold: Nicola Thorst, Germany

Silver: Stine Brun Kjeldaas, Norway

Bronze: Shannon Dunn, U.S.