Unforgiving : lessons from the fall

Unforgiving Lessons from the fall

Lindsey Jacobellis, 1985-

Book - 2023

In this deeply personal memoir in the vein of Andre Agassi's Open and Megan Rapinoe's One Life , the winningest snowboardcross rider of all time chronicles her career, a story of self-growth that reveals the secret of her resilience and how she overcame crushing early failure to win Olympic gold. On February 16, 2006, twenty-year old American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis was poised to win the first gold medal in women's snowboardcross, a sport making its Olympic debut. With a seemingly insurmountable lead over the other competitors, Lindsey only needed a clean run for the gold medal to be hers. But as the five-time world champion entered the last 100 meters the unthinkable choosing to add a little flair to the run, she grab...bed the back edge of her board--then lost her balance and fell. It was a mistake that would go down as one of the biggest "unforced errors" in all of sports history. For the next sixteen years, Jacobellis endured the criticism and second-guessing of Olympic commentators, sportswriters, and detractors. Day after day she persevered and trained harder on the snow and with her life coach, learning the power of resilience and what the sport really meant to her. The fierce competitor discovered that life, though it may not seem like it, does happen in just the right you end up precisely where you were meant to be. At the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, Lindsey twice reached the top of the podium, becoming a two-time Olympic gold medalist. Unforgiving recounts Lindsey's journey from disappointment to triumph. It is an honest account of one life-altering misstep and its aftermath, and a reflection on what it means to come of age as an athlete in the spotlight, the weight of expectations, falling short, and ultimately fulfilling your dreams. Unforgiving is about the purpose-driven, forward-looking attitude Lindsey took on after her fall, when looking back wouldn't have done anyone any favors. It's about the pass she refused to grant herself until she'd earned it. Unforgiving is about the commitment to seek her own truth--and to speak up on one's own behalf after letting others do it for years. Forgiveness, in the end, is at the heart of Lindsey's story, but underneath and alongside is its polar opposite--an unending, uncompromising determination to push herself, to prove herself, to power past every obstacle in her path, even those of her own making.

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Subjects
Jacobellis, Lindsey, > 1985-
Women snowboarders > United States > Biography.
Women Olympic athletes > United States > Biography.
SPORTS & RECREATION / Winter Sports / General.
Biographies.
Genres
Biographies
Published
London : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2023.
Language
English
Main Author
Lindsey Jacobellis, 1985- (author)
Other Authors
Daniel Paisner (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
226 pages, 8 pages of unnumbered plates : color illustrations, plates : 24 cm
ISBN
9780063294479
  • Opening Ceremonies: Dinged
  • 1. Unforgiving
  • 2. Along Came a Spyder
  • 3. No Fear
  • 4. Fire on the Mountain
  • 5. Stratton Mountain School
  • 6. Emergence
  • 7. The Long Climb
  • 8. Torino
  • 9. Grinding
  • 10. Consolation
  • 11. Acceptance
  • 12. The Shutdown
  • 13. Beijing
  • Closing Ceremonies: Where I Am
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Booklist Review

Snowboardcross (SBX), also known as boardercross, grew in popularity thanks to the X Games and made its Olympic debut at the 2006 Torino Winter Games with American Lindsey Jacobellis favored to win the inaugural women's final. In a thrilling race, the 20-year-old soared downhill and around banked turns, navigating the rollers, drops, and jumps with command until, just before the finish line, she did a midair board grab and fell, losing the gold medal. It was a devastating blip, a nanosecond decision that she describes carrying for 16 years as a yoke around her neck. The Connecticut native continued competing, participating in a total of five Olympics and celebrating a crowning moment at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games when she triumphantly topped the podium with two gold medals and became the oldest American woman to win gold in U.S. Winter Olympic history. Writing in a conversational, easy-to-read style, Jacobellis explains how her outdoorsy, ski-loving family helped build the foundation for her athletic success. Highly recommended for fans of winter and Olympic sports. Also essential for women's sports history collections.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Olympic gold medalist Jacobellis traces the arc of her snowboarding career in this inspiring ode to self-forgiveness. She opens by describing her elation during a 2022 White House ceremony after she won two gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, before addressing "the elephant in the room": in 2006, when Jacobellis was 20 years old and enjoying a comfortable lead in the home stretch of the women's snowboardcross finals, she fell and lost the race. She characterizes the mistake as "one of the biggest unforced errors in sports--an achingly ugly result that would stand as a constant reminder of what might have been." In flashbacks, including to her childhood in Connecticut and Vermont, when she first became enamored with winter sports, Jacobellis provides context for both the fall itself and the life lessons she drew on to overcome her embarrassment about the incident. Ultimately, Jacobellis resolved to continue racing despite constant public scrutiny about her mistake and, at age 36, she became the oldest U.S. female athlete to ever win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. This forthright account of Jacobellis's rebound from public humiliation should win her new admirers. Agent: Robert Barnett, Williams & Connolly. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The greatest female snowboard cross athlete of all time tells the story of "an unending, uncompromising determination to push myself." "They've become the manifestation of every dream I've allowed myself to dream," writes Jacobellis, with the assistance of veteran ghostwriter and collaborator Paisner, about the two gold medals she won at the 2022 Olympics. About the aftermath of her devastating fall at the 2006 Olympics, when she was 20, the author writes, "In the end I came to believe that it was the fall that drove me to keep competing, to keep pushing myself long past the age when most athletes hang it up." Now 37, Jacobellis describes a life driven by unrelenting, obsessive tenacity--e.g., "I couldn't keep from pushing myself," "I was always looking to push myself, to outrace and outhustle everyone else," "I was really pushing it every time I went out." Sharing a lesson she has learned over decades committed to a sport that "can be unforgiving for so long," the former five-time world champion and 10-time X Games champion notes, "In any discipline, it's never about them--meaning the other riders in the field. It's always about me--meaning no one else has the power to dictate the outcome. That's the mindset you need to embrace." It's a theme she emphasizes throughout this inspiring yet often repetitive book. The author delivers a variety of relatable family and sports stories, including accounts of the many injuries she endured and numerous years of competitions fueled by dogged, laser-focused perseverance. "I'm still the same person," Jacobellis writes now, more than a year after becoming an Olympic champion. "I'm still chasing, still pushing myself to be the best I can be. Still wondering what my life is going to look like away from snowboarding. Because that's how I'm wired." Sure to appeal to fans of Jacobellis as well as the sport. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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