American Cheese Melts Hopes of Gold

There’s no place in the world where you can escape American style.

Not even here, former home of an enormous Fiat factory, down the road from the Italian fashion houses of Milan. You hear it in the disco and hip-hop music pumping through the speakers, you see it in the overly tanned cheerleaders popping up at various venues or the Hollywood movies at the cinema museum.

The problems come when you try to have the American style without the substance, the Miles Davis cool without the genius behind it, the Marilyn Monroe appeal without the hidden calculated moves.

And so it was Friday that American style victimized ... the Americans.

The stories of the day were about an American in second and an American first. Call it pride and precedent.

Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis lost a gold medal because she went for style points in one of the few winter events in which they don’t count. And the U.S. women’s hockey team lost to someone besides Canada for the first time because they forgot the fundamentals of defense and tried to win with flash.

For hockey it was stunning enough that it happened. With Jacobellis, it was how it happened.

Jacobellis, from Stratton, Vt., was in the clear and headed toward the finish line of women’s snowboard cross, having avoided the collisions and spills that befell her competitors. Nothing but snow between her and the finish line.

That’s when she decided to bring a little of the freestyle competition to the snowboard cross. After she took off on the next-to-last jump she pulled off a method air move, twisting the board and reaching around with her left hand to grab the back of the board between the boots. But she couldn’t stick the landing and tumbled while a surprised and elated Tanja Frieden of Switzerland zipped by her to nab the gold.

“I was having fun, and snowboarding is fun,” Jacobellis said in a conference call as she headed to the Medals Plaza to pick up her silver. “I was feeling great that I was ahead. I wanted to share with the crowd my enthusiasm. But I messed up and ... oh well, it happens.”

That urge -- that need -- to throw in a little flair might be more of a snowboard thing than an American thing. But it’s hard to ignore the American nature of the sport. Americans invented it, Americans dominate it. The United States won the first three snowboard events here and took five of the first nine medals overall.

It’s not uncommon to see other moves more appropriate for the halfpipe than the downhill race. But with the gold medal in sight?

“Yeah, definitely I always style when I go over the jump, but I was really excited,” Jacobellis said. “I definitely was caught up in the moment and forgot I still had to race.”

The initial thought is of Leon Lett or anyone who ever cost themselves a touchdown because they slowed down, danced or waved the football before they reached the end zone. But Lett’s Dallas Cowboys still won the Super Bowl by 35 points.

I can’t ever recall someone else costing himself or herself a championship, or even a game, because of showboating.

If showboating is part of the American way, then so is cashing in. If her people are smart they’ll figure out a way to make this profitable. Maybe in her next commercial, the Visa endorser can triumphantly announce that she’ll pick up the dinner tab, then realize she forgot her credit card.

The U.S. women’s hockey team seemed to forget it had to take all the preliminary steps to get back to its customary gold-medal game against Canada. After all, it had been the United States versus Canada in the first two Olympic hockey tournaments, and it was supposed to be preordained again this time.

Then the Americans stopped short of finishing up their semifinal game against Sweden. They wound up losing in a shootout. They did this even though Sweden had almost twice as many penalty minutes.

“We are feeling pretty low,” U.S. forward Katie King said. “We had a lot of good opportunities in the power plays, but we didn’t put them home. That’s what hurts. We were maybe too pretty on plays and lost it a few times, and they capitalized on our mistakes.”

The irony is that the women’s performances here have been defined by gritty, not pretty. Whether it was China’s Zhang Dan bouncing back from a spill to finish her pairs figure skating routine and earn a gold or Lindsey Kildow recovering from a horrible crash to compete in the women’s downhill ski race.

Then came Friday. The birth of the cool -- and the end of the America’s golden hopes in women’s snowboard cross and hockey.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adandeblog.