By Kalle Oakes,Staff Writer

Seth Wescott’s last laugh came half a world away.

As a kid growing up in Franklin County, where there are nearly as many small ski areas as traffic lights, Wescott endured the staring, snickering and occasional swearing directed at snowboarders by conventional skiers.

It was a small price to pay for prime real estate. Wescott packed a lifetime of lessons into that rural Maine childhood and became best in the world.

Wescott, 29, made state and international sports history Thursday at Bardonecchia, Italy, winning the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded in snowboardcross. He is the first athlete from Maine to win any gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

“He grew up in Maine and had some of the best skiing in Maine. I’m sorry for all his competitors, they didn’t have the kind of facilities Seth had in his backyard,” said Greg Sweetser, executive director of Ski Maine. “They didn’t stand a chance.”

In addition to his formal ski training at Carrabassett Valley Academy and Sugarloaf/USA, Wescott also spent countless hours alone with his thoughts and his snowboard at Titcomb Mountain in Farmington and Saddleback Mountain in Rangeley.

Snowboardcross is a sort of hybrid of skiing, motocross and NASCAR racing. Competitors race against the clock in two rounds of time trials, whittling down the field to a manageable number. Then they’re sent out in heat race waves of four, with the top two finishers advancing to the next round of eliminations.

Jumps and turns are built into the course. Bumps and bold moves, even pushing and shoving, are common. Think stock cars at Daytona, only on packed powder, not asphalt.

Wescott was the only member of the U.S. team to escape Thursday’s heats without a collision. In the gold medal race, he darted to the inside lane and seized the top spot from Radoslav Zidek of Slovakia at halfway and narrowly led the pack to the finish.

“Since February of ’03, I’ve been looking to this as the goal that I wanted to accomplish,” Wescott said on the U.S. Snowboarding team Web site. “So it’s a pretty amazing experience to come here today and actually get that done.”

Formerly a star in the more subjectively judged halfpipe snowboard event at ESPN’s Winter X Games, Wescott turned to snowboardcross, in part, to extend his window of opportunity as an Olympian into his 30s.

The switch could make him a trailblazer for so-called “extreme” sports, much as Maine’s Joan Benoit Samuelson changed women’s sports by winning the Olympic marathon.

“Seeing the amount of marketing that went into this Olympics based around snowboarding,” Wescott said, “I think snowboarding is really becoming the heart and soul of the Olympic Games.”

John Ritzo, headmaster of Carrabassett Valley Academy, is with Wescott at the Olympics. He said there was an anxious moment early in the final when Wescott lost the lead to Zidek.

“Once you’re in the lead, you really have the advantage, and Seth is a master of getting in the lead,” Ritzo said. “Today, actually, this guy snuck by him. (But Wescott) really knows how to get speed out of his board. Technically, he’s very, very good, and very aggressive.”

Wescott’s win represented another victory for CVA, the small, private school located at the base of Sugarloaf. Olympians Kirsten Clark of Raymond and Bode Miller of Franconia, N.H., also trained there. Miller, a World Cup champion, won two silver medals in men’s skiing at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

“It’s an incredible day for me and for CVA. Seth’s our first gold medalist. To have Seth be the first was just great,” Ritzo said.

Ritzo described Wescott’s reaction as almost giddy.

“He was so pumped up, laughing. He was just laughing. There was nothing to say, just a matter of really savoring the moment,” Ritzo said.

Wescott emerged as a celebrity before the Olympics, with appearances on CBS’ “Late Night With David Letterman” and NBC’s “Today.”

Friends and colleagues don’t believe the inevitable post-Olympic spike in popularity will change Wescott, who is in the process of building a house on 21 acres near Sugarloaf.

“He’s so polite, so appreciative of what Maine has offered him,” said Sweetser. “I think he will not ignore his roots.”