Fletcher's Medal Is Surreal Thing

U.S. Snowboarder Slides Away With Surprise Bronze in Parallel Giant Slalom

Fireworks explode over Piazza Castello following the medal ceremony, of which three-time Olympian Rosey Fletcher said: "I never expected this. I had no idea so many people would be there." (By Petr Josek -- Reuters)

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 23 -- Come night, the city spills into the streets, surging across cobblestone sidewalks and against the fences erected at the end of the Via Po. The lucky ones clutch a 3-by-5 piece of cardboard that allows them past police barricades and to the wall of metal detectors that will bring them closer to the giant silver flying saucer that serves as the stage for medal ceremonies in the 350-year-old Piazza Castello.

Here they watch as five groups of skaters, skiers and snowboarders receive medals from old men with exotic International Olympic Committee titles. Then they stare, breathless, as the flags of the winning athletes rise into the night and national anthems blare through the speakers. As they gaze, they wave tiny Italian flags.

For a moment, it is the best party in the city.

It was into this scene that American snowboarder Rosey Fletcher walked Thursday night. The glow of a third-place finish in the parallel giant slalom earlier in the day still lingered.

She stepped onto the stage, looked at the thousands of faces and Italian flags that faced her. A huge spotlight burned down from above. And for a moment, she didn't know what to think.

"I never expected this," she said. "I had no idea so many people would be there."

She had been to two previous Olympics, yet had never seen this ceremony. In both of those she fell, destroying any hope of a medal. Thursday was her last chance. Yet even after she won her bronze, no one told her what to expect. There is a disconnect between the athletes competing in the mountain venues and the people in the city far below. These athletes never see Piazza Castello and the thousands of people pouring across the cobblestones. For Olympians like Fletcher, the best party in Turin might as well be in Antwerp.

Then she was starring in it with no time to prepare. Not even with the courtesy of a shower. As soon as her race was over, the snowboard people hustled her from the course, through news conferences, to the doping station and then into a car for a 90-minute drive down the mountains from Bardonecchia right across the Piazza Castello and into the back of the flying saucer. On the surface, she wore the blue warmup suit and ski cap that is the official U.S. uniform. Underneath, she still had on her snowboard clothes.

She looked at herself and laughed.

"Oh well, I'm from Alaska," she said. "In my town if you don't walk into the coffee shop wearing your gear they think something is wrong with you."

Fletcher is from Girdwood, Alaska. She is 30 years old and until Thursday night she had never seen anything quite like this. She walked onto the stage, into the light and began to laugh.

In the crowd below she saw her teammates, her family, her fiancé Kurt Bunde, and she waved. Then she realized she was on an Olympic medals stage and there is a decorum to this kind of thing. So she straightened. But down below they kept waving, shouting and snapping pictures. She couldn't help herself. She waved again. The camera zoomed in on her face. A huge picture of her was beamed across two enormous screens dangling from the top of the flying saucer. She made a face that said, "Can you believe this?" Then she pointed at the USA on her ski cap and laughed once more. Suddenly there was a man in front of her draping a medal around her neck. She ran her fingers across the metal. Someone else handed her a bouquet. She took it, then looked around. What was she supposed to do? No one said.