By Charean Williams, McClatchy Newspapers
WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Seth Wescott knew he was going to medal. He was so sure of it that last week he packed a U.S. flag belonging to his late grandfather.
Wescott wrapped himself in the flag Monday after repeating as the Olympic gold medalist in the snowboard cross.
“It was the part of the preparation to come back to this exact moment,” Wescott, 33, said. “There was a reason why I was packing my flag, and it was that when I got to the final round that I would have it here as I had it in Torino. There’s so much mental process that you have to plan exactly what you want to do. So packing that thing at my house Monday I had a powerful moment of putting that thing in my backpack, and I was going to carry it here and try to redo the same thing I had done in Torino. It had a lot of meaning.”
Wescott might have seen this coming, but no one else did.