Seth Wescott leads his guest on a serpentine path through the base lodge of his home mountain, his pace brisk as he turns corners, climbs stairs, and finally ducks behind a pillar to sit at a nearly hidden table just off the food court.

Here, he admits later, he can speak privately … even if it’s just to a curious reporter. And out there, just 10 feet away, at a table in the middle of the dining area?

“Probably not,” Wescott says with a shrug and a grin. “That’s a little bit of the hard part of being home now. And with the restaurant, as well. It was a place where I could be anonymous before, and now [I’m] part of the show, being in there. When families come in, the kids are looking for autographs and stuff.”

Not that Wescott is complaining, mind you.

“If it makes them excited and hopefully gets them motivated to be doing winter sports, then I’m more than happy to help in that way,” he says.

Welcome to Wescott’s World. It’s an example of how life changes – and how a man needn’t change at all – after his name, and his sport, become familiar worldwide due nearly entirely to one magical day on the slopes of Torino, Italy.

All of a sudden – if spending more than 10 years toiling at a largely overlooked craft can be called “all of a sudden,” that is – Seth Wescott, Farmington-raised and Carrabassett Valley Academy-educated, was something special.

He was an Olympic gold medalist. And his sport – alternately called snowboard cross, boardercross, or SBX – formerly seen primarily during ESPN’s X Games, is popular on a more global stage.

Snowboard cross is, simply put, organized mayhem on snow. Four boarders bolt from a starting gate, careen down a mountain, and try to pass each other.

Sometimes, there’s contact. Sometimes, there are crashes. Massive crashes. Bone-shattering, knee-tearing, spectacular crashes.

All of which helps make the sport … well … very interesting.

And all of which makes Wescott, the All-American poster boy and only Olympic gold medalist the sport has ever known, a hot commodity.

“Ultimately, I think it’s just been really cool, especially the post-Olympics stuff, because it just gives you the opportunity to meet so many people that you really get to realize how big the Olympics are and how important it is to the people back home when your country does well,” Wescott says.

Wescott is, without a doubt, an advertiser’s dream: He’s smart, funny, and (all the girls at his home mountain will tell you) not hard on the eyes. He’s also a businessman who is a part-owner of a Sugarloaf restaurant.

And since that day in Torino a year ago, the pace of his life has accelerated in a way that even he didn’t anticipate.

He read the Top Ten list on Letterman. He rang the opening bell on Wall Street. He organized this weekend’s Champion’s Cross, in hopes of giving him and his fellow riders another competitive outlet in their sport. He signed autographs and kissed babies and shook hands.

Oh. One more thing: He raced his butt off.

On the heels of his Olympic win, Wescott embarked on another successful campaign this winter. In his last five races he finished in the top three five straight times. Then came a February World Cup race in Japan, where his competitive season came to a sudden end.

“Someone, I don’t know if they had crashed or had just taken a weird line into the takeoff of this jump in the heat right before me,” Wescott says. “My board was flat base, I was just running straight, and just at the point of takeoff, the edge caught in the rut and hooked it. I flew probably 80, 85 feet, right into a heel-side edge catch.”

To nonsnowboarders, a heel-side edge catch may not mean anything. In layman’s terms, it means one thing: A major ouch is imminent.

Wescott estimates that he was traveling about 45 mph when he hit the snow awkwardly, with his weight penduluming backward. His arms, of course, led the way. And that’s when it got ugly.

“The arm came and slapped on ice so hard that it just shattered,” Wescott says. “I knew it was a bad one before I even hit the ground. I was like, ‘Oh, this is gonna hurt.’ It was all dislocated and everything. I took one look at it and said, ‘My arm’s broken. I need a ride off the mountain.”‘

After the ride, Wescott had surgery on his shattered left radius, which is now held in place with a metal plate and 13 screws.

Needless to say, Wescott won’t be racing in his own signature event today.

But he’s not finished. Not riding. Not racing. Not organizing.

He envisions a Champion’s Cross circuit that will have three to five races next year.

And he envisions a competitive career that will continue for at least the next three years.

“For me, the Vancouver Olympics is kind of the horizon I’m looking at right now, and I’m not making any decisions beyond that,” Wescott says. “But I think in these next three years it’s a quick turnaround to go to Vancouver and clearly I want to go and defend my gold medal.”

Not just Wescott’s gold medal. The one-and-only gold medal that has been awarded in this fledgling Olympic sport.

Wescott takes the responsibility that goes along with that medal seriously. And he likes the fact that winning that special race in Torino has put him in a unique position to promote the sport he loves, and the discipline he competes in.

It wasn’t long ago, you see, when Wescott’s World was much different, and his sport was looked at with disdain, even among others who loved carving fresh tracks in pristine mountain snow.

When Wescott began riding, snowboarders were largely dismissed as renegade troublemakers by many skiers who didn’t want boards allowed on mountains at all.

“I went from being a kid dealing with [the fact] that you could have resort acceptance, to be able to go and do this, to the reality of being able to, if you were really good at this, you could make a living professionally,” Wescott said.

Now, gold medal in hand and a bright future ahead, Wescott is looking to the future and absorbing the changes that victory has caused.

“I guess more than anything I’d say that [winning the gold medal] has made life insanely hectic for a year,” Wescott says. “I don’t think it changes me, but it does give me a unique opportunity in things like [organizing Champion’s Cross], to take on a role of leadership within the sport and try to be a catalyst for positive change.”

Balmy weather for event

Spring was apparent even at Maine’s second-tallest mountain on Friday as time trials for Champion’s Cross took place. Parking lots at Sugarloaf/USA were muddy, a vivid freshet of green water began to win the battle against the Carrabassett River’s winter coat, and skiers and snowboarders sported fresh tans on a bright 40-degree day.

Bill Swain, Sugarloaf’s communication director, said conditions on the mountain were a bit soft on Friday, but temperatures were expected to drop into the 20s on Friday night and the course was expected to set up nicely for Saturday’s races.

“The course conditions look good. As soon as they’re done today’s time trails, they’ll groom and they’ll smooth everything out for tomorrow’s race,” Swain said.

Swain said there have been a few adjustments made to the race rules due to a variety of reasons.

First, due to insurance concerns, riders will not be allowed to do inverted tricks as part of the race’s mandatory freestyle component. Instead, they’ll do a 360-degree spin at one of two jumps late in the race.

Second, organizers have decided to start four racers at a time in heats rather than six, as was originally planned.

And third, because colder weather was expected on Friday night, the course will be altered a bit to adapt to the conditions that are expected.

“We are going to move the start down [the mountain] a little bit, which I would assume is probably because the course is anticipated to be a little bit faster,” Swain said.

Riders like course layout

When Wescott began organizing Champion’s Cross, he said he wanted to provide riders with a venue and course that they’d want to race on. Early indications are that he succeeded.

After Friday’s time trials, Yarmouth native Kevin Leahy, who now trains in Salt Lake City, said he loved the technical layout that Wescott helped design.

“The course was super fun. You’re in the air just about as much time as you’re on the ground,” Leahy said. “Mostly [courses] are kind of lame. It’s like slalom turns throughout the whole thing, banked turns. There’s only two banked turns [here].”

Leahy said the required freestyle maneuver added to the enjoyment, although he was skeptical at first.

“That whole mandatory 360 was a surprise for me. I’d never heard of that or heard of anyone who had heard of that,” Leahy said. “But it was fun. I was pretty terrified to do it and actually my first two times doing it were my two time trial runs. It worked out well.”

Jason Smith, a rider from Basalt, Colo., also enjoyed the course.

“This race is a little more laid back than most of the World Cups we go to, but a lot of the features are a little more technical,” Smith said. “I was pumped, stoked that Seth was able to put on this event and do the freestyle jump in there.”

Smith said he and Wescott competed in another event several years ago that required a freestyle trick during the race. He said the key to avoiding problems during those tricks would be communication between the riders.

“Being able to talk to the riders you’re with is going to be huge, it’s going to be key,” Smith said. “[Before the race] I’ll ask which direction they’re going to be spinning, whether it’s front-side or back-side … and coming in there if there’s some guy real close to me, I’ll let him know where I’m at.”

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordaiynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.