Medals update: Experience wins out as USA's Baumgartner and Jacobellis scoop mixed team snowboard cross gold

The United States team of Nick Baumgartner (40) and Lindsey Jacobellis (36) were fastest and best in the chaotic debut of mixed team snowboard cross finals here at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. Despite heavy snow falling from the quarter-final stage on, the oldest team in the field kept their cool to take the historic gold.

For Baumgartner, here at his fourth Olympics, it's a first taste of gold, while Jacobellis, who took first in the women's competition, earns a double Beijing 2022 gold.

Each team in the event was made up of two snowboarders (one woman and one man) with the men competing first and women second. When the first team member crosses the line, the time advantage he held over the next-best competitor was transferred to his female teammate.

So the female athletes then began their runs in a staggered format, with the time advantage added to the beginning.

Baumgartner and Jacobellis, who embraced emotionally after the big final of the inaugural event, never looked like being denied. Baumgartner, who was in tears two days ago, claiming he felt he "let everyone down," back home in Michigan, pulled off an incredible takeover in his first run in the big final, giving Jacobellis some breathing room to help come across the finish line first in a women's leg that saw Meryeta Odine of Canada and Caterina Carpano of Italy crash hard.

The Italian team of Omar Vistintin (bronze in the men's cometition) and Michela Moioli fought the whole way in the big final, and tightened the gap before finally finishing second for the silver medal -- just ahead of Canadians Odine and Eliot Grondin (bronze).

The Italians, with two teams in the big final, were guaranteed a medal before the start.

Several favourites crashed out of