REBAGLIATI INDUCTED INTO B.C. SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Snowboarder To Join Hockey Legends, Other Olympians In Induction
Ceremony

It was Feb.8, 1998, at the Olympic Games in Nagano, where Whistler's
own Ross Rebagliati claimed the first gold medal ever awarded for
snowboarding.

It was an exciting giant slalom race, with Quebec's Jaysey Jay
Anderson in front of the pack after the first run, and Rebagliati
securely in eighth place. Mark Fawcett, the favourite to win the
medal, blew out a binding on his snowboard on his first run, and would
have to watch the race from the sidelines.

With fog closing in and the first wave of riders scraping all the snow
off the course, Rebagliati had the run of his life. He nearly lost
control a couple of times, and swept wide on two of the gates in a
steep middle section, but never slowed down and stayed on his edge.

The run was good enough to launch him to the top of the leader board,
where he stayed as the remaining snowboarders tried to close the gap.
A few came close, but in the end it was Ross Rebagliati in first, just
two one-hundredths of a second ahead of Thomas Prugger of Italy and
0.12 seconds ahead of Ueli Kestenholz of Switzerland.

While the race was as close and exciting as it gets, it was the events
that followed that truly made Rebagliati a world phenomenon.

On Feb. 10, the International Olympic Committee stripped Rebagliati of
his gold medal after they discovered that he had tested positive for a
small amount of marijuana. The Olympic Court for Arbitration of Sport,
after strenuous protests were made by the Canadian team, voted
unanimously to return the gold medal to Rebagliati. They ruled that
while marijuana is a banned IOC substance, the International Snowboard
Federation, which regulated snowboarding at the time, did not test for
marijuana as a performance enhancing substance.

The medal was returned to Rebagliati the following day. For his part
Rebagliati claimed that he had last smoked marijuana a year before the
Winter Games, and that the positive test was likely the result of
second-hand smoke.

While a small controversy raged, Rebagliati kept calm, stuck to his
story, and became an overnight celebrity. He also refused to condemn
his friends for smoking marijuana around him, something which further
elevated his public image.

Rebagliati's achievement became a defining Olympic moment for the 1998
Winter Games, and he became a Canadian hero for the way he raced and
the way he carried himself through the controversy.

At home almost 5,000 people turned out to welcome Rebagliati home to
Whistler on Feb. 17, an event that is still remembered as one of the
best parties Whistler has ever hosted -- up there with Rob Boyd's 1989
World Cup downhill win at home and the announcement that Whistler and
Vancouver would be hosting the 2010 Winter Games. A small park was
named Ross Rebagliati Park in his honour, and Whistler-Blackcomb
renamed Gandy Dancer as Ross's Gold.

Now, almost seven years later, Rebagliati has been inducted into the
B.C. Sports Hall of Fame, alongside former NHL players Stan Smyl and
Ivan McLelland, Olympic kayaker David Ford, and baseball player Arnold
Hallgren. Other inductees include the 1964 Vancouver Carling Lacrosse
Club and the Vancouver Asahi baseball team in the Pioneer category,
and swimmer Marion Lay and track and field star Jane Swan in the
Builders category, and Jim Taylor in the Media category. The W.A.C.
Bennett Award, which is given to individuals that make a lasting
contribution to sports in B.C., will be presented to Jack Poole, the
chairman of the board for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Committee.

Formal induction into the Hall of Fame will take place in a ceremony
in April of 2005, bringing the total number of members to 264, plus 45
teams.