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In an event billed as NASCAR on ice, it took some fancy racing to put Seth Wescott on the top of the podium. His gold medal is the sixth for the U.S. in snowboarding.

Racing in a tight, four-man pack against Smith in the quarterfinals, Holland took huge air on a jump about one-third of the way down the course — so high that his board could plainly be seen wiggling back and forth in the air.

Holland landed on his backside. He thinks he found himself in the jumble because Smith had slowed down in front of him.

“I don’t know what he’s doing speed-checking in the course on an Olympic game day,” Holland said.

Smith’s response: That’s racin’.

“There’s definitely always contact in the sport,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was him right there. There was definitely no intentional contact off that jump. That’s boardercross. That’s why a lot of people come out here to watch it.”

Smith finished sixth after consolation heats and Holland came in 14th. The fourth American, late substitute Graham Watanabe, wound up 31st.

The biggest wipeout of the day came in a semifinal near the top of the hill when Spain’s Jordi Font appeared to lose his balance, reached out and swiped at Canada’s Jasey Jay Anderson.

They slammed into the gate, then gathered themselves up and continued down the hill. Anderson beat Font easily for second, which would have earned him the spot in the finals, but he was disqualified for not keeping his board inside the gate.

Anderson protested, but a video review showed no conclusive evidence to overturn the call and Font, whose crash took him past the correct side of the gate, advanced.

“That’s boardercross,” Anderson said.

Westcott’s medal was the fifth of these Olympics for the Americans in snowboarding, which figures to take another step forward in popularity.

In fact, at about the time Wescott won, halfpipe champion Hannah Teter and silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler were on their way to Florida to serve as starters for Sunday’s Daytona 500, the biggest event on NASCAR’s schedule.

Given the way he moved around in traffic, surely Wescott would fit in there, too.