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In the end the Ice Man got frozen out by one of his own. Moguls skier Dale Begg-Smith couldn’t quite match his exploits of four years ago on the Cypress Mountain Winter Olympics course Sunday, edged out by Canadian Alexandre Bilodeau for the gold.
Qualifying fourth for the final the Australian put it all on the line, executing two clean jumps and scoring the highest in the field for his signature turns.
But on a slow, soft course the Quebecois was a little too quick, the time differential of 0.6 seconds ultimately proving the difference.
American Bryon Wilson was third.
It was a night full of symmetry as Bilodeau claimed a victory to make him Canada’s first gold medallist at a home Olympics following the barren 1976 Montreal summer Games and Calgary’s winter one 12 years later.
And he pinched it from a man born and mostly raised just down the road here, in West Vancouver.
Three years younger than the 25-year-old Begg-Smith, Bilodeau also grew up idolising countryman Jean Luc Brassard, the moguls legend and 1994 Lillehammer gold medallist who inspired both to get into the sport.
Begg-Smith, often referred to as the Ice Man here because of his nerveless demeanour when skiing – and a sometimes frosty relationship with the media – stuck with moguls but moved on to Australia when Canadian officials refused to allow him to miss training camps to pursue an internet business in 2001.
That move helped to make him a millionaire – and six years later in Turin Australia’s third Winter Olympic gold medallist.
There were a few murmurs of discontent from the Australian camp on Sunday with Olympic Winter Institute boss Geoff Lipshut expressing his surprise that Bilodeau had scored so highly with his turns.
Unsurprisingly there were was nothing but jubilation from the Canadians, the crowd of 8,269 in raptures with their new golden boy of the Games.