ZHANGJIAKOU, China – With blue and green hair highlighted by royal purple, and just a thread of gold glitter eye liner, Jenise Spiteri became the Malta dumpling darling of the Beijing 2022 women’s snowboard halfpipe qualifiers Wednesday morning.
Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack here.
Spiteri is a San Francisco-born, late-snowboard blooming, California van-living, YouTube content-producing, first-ever snowboarder to represent the European island of Malta. Naturally, in her first Olympics – in which she’s the flagbearer as the only representative of Malta – she had pre-event butterflies.
She couldn’t really eat after her two breakfast dumplings, so she stuffed two more red bean paste buns in her red Malta jacket pocket, forgot about them and then did her first Olympic run.
It didn’t go perfectly – she sluffed her back seven late on her first run – but when she got to the base of Genting Snow Park and waited for her score, she rediscovered those nearly-frozen treats, and popped one in her mouth. On TV. To our amusement.
“It’s like my favorite food that we have in the village,” said Spiteri. “When I was like strapping into dropping for that second run, I was like, ‘oh my God, my dumpling is in my pocket.’
“I thought having a little bite of it would help soften the blow of falling on that run. I kind of just gave it too much juice and came around to like 747 instead of 720 and couldn’t hang on. But I usually really like doing that trick because not really many girls do back sevens.”
Spiteri came back for her second run and looked much stronger and more confident. She scored last among the 22 competitors. But what she really accomplished cannot be quantified by two halfpipe runs in Beijing.
Spiteri’s mom, Jacki Spiteri, was a nationally ranked figure skater and then coach for the U.S. Her father was born in Malta and her grandfather, Joseph, came to the U.S. after World War II.
“He started an ice skating company and they’ve made skates for champion Olympian skaters like Michelle Kwan,” said Spiteri.
After growing up around skating, Spiteri started snowboarding at age 18, in the 2010-‘11 winter season while attending Sierra Nevada College in the Lake Tahoe area. She was a top-15 finisher in the 2014 World Cup in Copper and kept working at her craft.
Injuries have dogged her, though. She tore her ACL in 2012 and then did it again in 2017, with the meniscus as well, in New Zealand while training for a 2018 Olympic qualifier.
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Undeterred, she was competing for Malta by then and eager to put the island of a little more than half a million people on the snowboarding map.
“I’m really proud of my Maltese heritage. Growing up in San Francisco, I really grew up as a Maltese American,” said Spiteri. “We were very involved in a Maltese social club, we’d go to events, Maltese. I’ve always felt as Maltese as I am American and so to represent Malta and be their first snowboarder is really special to me.
“My grandfather passed away before I was able to start competing. But I know that he would be so proud and so honored to see me carry the Maltese flag after all the work he’s put in for everyone else.”
Spiteri has a pretty big following on all her social media accounts, especially YouTube. Now that she’s combining her digital platform with her Olympic appearance, her ambassadorship for the sport, and her “other” home has an even bigger reach.
“I’ve got Twitter messages, Instagram messages, YouTube things, TikTok, and it’s really cool to see the reactions from people,” said Spiteri. “There’s just as many Maltese people outside of Malta as in Malta, and so I’ve had a lot of international Maltese people being like, ‘Oh, I’m a Maltese Canadian. I’m a Maltese German, this is so cool to see a Maltese person in snowboarding.’
“I really am hoping that it inspires a lot of people around the world because I didn’t start snowboarding ’til I was 18. I got a late start but I just really, really wanted it and I worked hard. And I put my whole heart into it and tried all I could. I was living in my van training, I’ve been through a lot of struggles, but I stuck to it and made it.”
Oh – and in Malta? Spiteri suggests eating a pastizzi.
“It’s definitely the best thing to eat in Malta.”
