PARK CITY, Utah ? Tristan Gale, her hair streaked red, white and blue and sliding on a hill practically in her back yard, won the gold medal in women's skeleton Wednesday by one-tenth of a second over American Lea Ann Parsley.
Gale playfully mugged for TV cameras in the starting gate just before her last run and then finished her two heats in 1 minute, 45.11 seconds to give the U.S. a golden sweep in skeleton ? making its first appearance in the Winter Olympics since 1948.
Less than a half-hour earlier, American Jim Shea won the men's competition on a snowy morning at Utah Olympic Park.
Before winning the gold, Gale had never finished higher than eighth in a World Cup race.
"Well," she said, "it's the best race to start."
Parsley, a decorated firefighter from Granville, Ohio, won the silver in 1:45.21.
Alex Coomber of Great Britain won the bronze in 1:45.37.
The bubbly Gale was a competitive alpine skier for 10 years before trying skeleton.
She wasn't expected to contend for a medal, but ripped down the mountain course she knew better than anyone in the field.
Gale entered the final heat leading Parsley by .01 seconds, and with track sweepers unable to keep up with the falling snow, she was on a slower track than the rest of the field.
"I really don't like the snow," she said. "I was looking up in the sky I was hoping it would stop."
And in case anyone was wondering if the 21-year-old Gale was feeling the pressure, she flashed a smile and waved to the cameras as if mom and dad were making a home movie of her zipping through the neighborhood on a Flexible Flyer.
When Gale crossed the finish line, she hadn't even gotten off her sled when Parsley, her 33-year-old teammate, jumped on her and the two rolled around on the track.
Parsley, Ohio Firefighter of the Year in 1999 for helping rescue a wheelchair-using teen-ager and her mother from a burning house, helped carry the World Trade Center flag into the opening ceremony.
Parsley came to the games with a badly pulled hamstring and wasn't sure how it would respond on race day. But her starts were strong and she tore down the course twice, blazing through the curves in the helmet that she spray painted flames on.