Olympian Shaun White Aims to Catch Some Air and a Medal
Feb. 10, 2005 — -- The U.S. Olympic team is poised to snatch one of its first gold medals of the Turin Games this weekend when a redheaded teen from California known as "The Flying Tomato" takes off on his snowboard.
At 19, Shaun White is already a veteran in the snowboarding community with major sponsors and a stack of X Games victories. He makes his Olympics debut Sunday in the halfpipe event, where he'll be careening down a 20-foot-tall sheet of ice after tossing huge jumps off the side of the wall.
"If he doesn't get gold, it's going to be a pretty major upset. … I don't think we have a heavier gold medal favorite -- even more than Bode [Miller]," said Outside magazine editor John Bradley.
"What's phenomenal about this guy is the consistency in the halfpipe. You have guys who go really big and guys who are artistic -- and he somehow combines both," Bradley said.
That consistency has earned White eight straight victories this season, including five Grand Prix events and a gold at the recent Winter X Games. During warmer weather, White trades his baggy clothes and goggles for a set of wheels to compete in the Summer X Games as a skateboarder. He's the only athlete in X Games history to perform in both seasons.
"He's a threat in both," Bradley said. "And that kind of speaks to his dominance -- that skateboarding is kind of his fallback sport and he's one of the best in the world at it."
As U.S. riders strap into their boards to compete in the halfpipe and the freestyle race known as snowboard cross -- they'll hit the snow at a particularly strong moment in the sport's history.
It's become common for men to land 1080s in the halfpipe. That's three full rotations in the air, completed after they launch from the side of the structure.
"It's reached a point in its maturity that there are accepted tricks," Bradley said. "So instead of being wowed -- looking at how they're pulling it off -- this is the first Olympics where snowboarding is going to be at that level."
