FAVOURITE Charlotte Bankes was eliminated at the quarter-final stage as American veteran Lindsey Jacobellis claimed an extraordinary first Olympic gold medal in women’s snowboard-cross today at the age of 36.

Bankes’s shock exit was a crushing blow for Great Britain, who had high hopes that the reigning world champion would provide their first medal of an increasingly testing Beijing Games, and potentially a first gold on snow.

Instead it was Jacobellis, competing in her fifth Olympics and best known for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in 2006 when she attempted an unnecessary trick on her final jump and fell, who finally sealed her long-awaited gold.