COMING INTO FOCUS SNOWBOARDCROSSER JACOBELLIS IS NEW FACE OF U.S. TEAM.

Byline: PAUL OBERJUERGE

TURIN, Italy - If you watch television, you've seen Lindsey Jacobellis, and you've heard her speak. Exactly two words, to a coach, at the top of a mountain in the Andes.

``I'm good.''

Get ready to see a lot more of her. And prepare to hear her speak at length. Probably on some NBC set, with a tight focus on her dream-girl- next-door face.

With apologies to U.S. teammates Sasha Cohen, Michelle Kwan and all the women on the alpine ski and ice hockey teams, we have found the It Girl of the Turin Olympics. And it is Lindsey Jacobellis.

If she wins a gold medal in the mayhem-filled Olympic debut sport of snowboardcross, Jacobellis easily could become The Face of the NBC Olympics.

She easily could cross from ``shreddin' snowboarder/Winter X Games'' niche fame to multi-media stardom. With that mountaintop Visa debit-card commercial only the first big item on her Madison Avenue resume.

America loves nothing more than an Olympics champion who looks like a movie star ... and acts like a regular kid.

``Lindsey is very humble,'' fellow snowboardcrosser Nate Holland said. ``Which makes her easy to like and hard to be jealous of.''

First off, Jacobellis is a polished competitor, the defending world champion in snowboardcross and a three-time X Games champion in the same event.

And this is not just any slide down the hill.

Snowboardcross is four riders jockeying down a jump-pocked hill at about 55 mph. Like full-contact roller derby off the edge of a cliff. The first two across the finish line advance to the next round. The other two go home.

NBC execs are salivating over the potential drawing power of the sport.

``I think it's a great spectator sport because you know there's crashes and the kind of carnage that people like to watch,'' Jacobellis said Thursday. ``It's a horrible thing to say, but people watch for crashes. And it's very exciting. Anything can happen, you know?''

Anything, including a fresh-faced young woman with greenish-blue eyes and a mop of blonde curls being the best in the world in the sport. Despite being undersized, at 5 feet, 6 inches and 135 pounds.

Jacobellis, 20, ought to be in pictures, right now. But she still believes she is an athlete. And, well, she is.

She is so good at what she does, she nearly qualified for two events here - snowboardcross as well as the sport's distant cousin, the trick-oriented halfpipe.

Jacobellis said snowboardcross requires a mix of snowboard skills.

``Boardercross involves the air training which is halfpipe training and going off jumps, and it's race training, too,'' she said. ``You need all those little factors in there to make you a world-class rider. Since I grew up doing all the events, it gave me a good background for doing this.''

Jacobellis picked up snowboarding from older brother Ben. The two of them got rides from their mother to Stratton Mountain, Vt., from their home in Connecticut to compete. Beginning when Lindsey was 10.

It hasn't been all fun and games for Jacobellis, the athlete. She has injured both ankles and knees; she has chronic back and shoulder pain from all her falls.

She has been part of the ``carnage,'' too.

``I remember my first crash, my first X Games crash,'' she said. ``The jump was very steep, almost like a quarterpipe, it elevated so quickly, and I wasn't ready for it, and there were people around me and I was distracted and I was pretty young in my career. It was harder for myself to block out the people and focus on what I was doing.

``So I flipped backwards going up the jump and landed, actually, on the back of my neck. And I could feel my whole body going numb, and I couldn't stand up. It was very scary, being at 14, doing that.''

Many people who have seen the Visa commercial assume the blonde girl is an actor, not an athlete. Jacobellis said only now are people beginning to make the connection. ``At home, I'm recognized. At the store, at the gym. But not much anywhere else.''

Said Holland: ``It's cool to open up the magazines and see Lindsey there, or walk down the street in New York and see Lindsey on the side of a phone booth. It's good for the sport.''

Jacobellis' appeal also includes what seems to be a lack of self- consciousness.

Holland, however, said there is plenty of savvy behind those innocent eyes. Jacobellis has an agent, and she also has endorsement deals with Kellogg's, Dunkin' Donuts and Paul Mitchell hair products.

``I think she's fully aware of the possibilities in front of her if she wins here,'' Holland said.

If she gets the gold here, Feb. 17 - and she concedes she has ``a really good chance, but I don't want to jinx myself'' - her next career move could be back in front of a lens.

``Yeah, I feel comfortable in front of cameras,'' she said. ``I don't know about acting. I may feel silly acting. But commercials, that wasn't much acting. I felt good doing that, yeah.''

Look for her. Saying much more than ``I'm good,'' even if that sums up Lindsey Jacobellis quite nicely.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Lindsey Jacobellis has gone from Winter X Games fame to Visa commercials - yes, that's her - to possible Olympic medalist and multi-media star.

Robert Laberge/Getty Images

(2 -- color) no caption (torino 2006)

(3 -- color) no caption (Curling Stone)

(4 -- color) no caption (snowboarding)

(5 -- color) no caption (2006 Winter Olympics)

Box:

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