ESPN Olympic Sports

BARDONECCHIA, Italy -- Seth Wescott only recently admitted to his mother how many times he skipped classes in high school to go snowboarding.

"I think he knew what he was doing," Margaret Gould Wescott conceded after her son had won the first ever gold medal in snowboardcross, the wildest new sport in the Olympics.

She realizes now that she might have encouraged her son's behavior by rigging springs under his crib when he was just learning to sit up, allowing him to play as if he were on a mini trampoline. Then there was the designated "jumping couch" in the living room.

"Kids would come in and they would go, 'You can jump on your couch? And he and his sister would tell them 'We can sit on the green couch and we can jump on the yellow couch," said Gould Wescott, a college dance teacher.

The sport her son conquered Thursday requires supreme balance and agility as riders race head-to-head down a course laden with banked turns and motocross-like jumps.

On Friday, it will be the women's turn at the new Olympic sport, with the U.S. team led by Lindsey Jacobellis.

Wescott showed his best stuff on the bottom half of the final race as he reeled in eventual silver medalist Radoslav Zidek of Slovakia, avoiding a disastrous collision as he landed a jump.

"I almost landed on Rado," Wescott said. "I had a bunch of speed. ... I was a little worried in the air that that might be the end of the race right there. I was looking down on him and I wasn't sure exactly where the trajectory was going to put me."

There was bumping, thrashing, wipeouts and worse during the 90-minutes of NASCAR on Ice, a series of four-man races down the mountain with everyone vying for space on the tight, high-banked course a little more than 1,000 yards long.

Wescott, 29, capped a decade-long quest to become an Olympic medalist, one that wound through the halfpipe and across the rough-and-tumble courses of snowboardcross, a more violent -- and maybe more exciting -- cousin.

"I think for a lot of people who just see snowboarding in the halfpipe, they might not see all the intricacies of it," Wescott said. "But with this, they love the racing aspect and for all of us, it's one of the things that makes it so exciting to do."

Wescott won by being able to stay out of any messes over his four trips down the slope, unlike fellow Americans Nate Holland and Graham Watanabe, both of whom were eliminated after crashing. Canadian favorites Drew Neilson and Jasey Jay Anderson also failed to make the marquee race after going down on collisions with other riders. American Jason Smith also steered clear of contact, but was eliminated in the semifinal heats when he was passed mid-course by Paul-Henri Delerue of France, the eventual bronze winner.

In the final, Wescott made the decisive pass on Zidek first by picking up speed on the high line of the course and squeezing underneath him on a hard right turn. He led the rest of the way, winning by about half a board.

"Before I got to the line, it was stressful because I was seeing Rado's shadow," Wescott said. "As soon as I crossed it was a great relief. Just the realization of this dream I've been chasing this winter. This was my only focus for the whole season."

Friday's women's snowboardcross will feature a face familiar to many Americans -- Jacobellis.

She enters the event as one of the favorites, but that doesn't mean she's necessarily calm and nonchalant about it.

The 20-year-old Jacobellis said she always feels jittery ahead of the start. It must be working, because she's won seven races on the world circuit.

Canada also could land a spot on the podium. Dominique Maltais is this season's World Cup leader and teammate Maelle Ricker is ranked second.

Third-ranked Doresia Krings of Austria could also be among the medals along with the French pair of Karine Ruby, a four-time World Cup winner, and Julie Pomagalski, the 1999 world champion.

Ruby could become the only competitor in the field to win three medals in consecutive Winter Games. She won a gold medal in the giant slalom at Nagano in 1998 and a silver in the parallel giant slalom in Salt Lake four years ago.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press

This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index