25-year-old snowboarding star makes history
As if Shaun White wasn’t enough of a superstar, his performance during Sunday’s superpipe final solidified his place in Winter X Games History, reports USA Today.
In the elimination round Sunday afternoon, White broke his amplitude record set in last year’s gold medal-winning finals performance, and during his first run of the final round he earned a score of 94.
A fall on his second run left some room for his competitors to hope, but White’s performance on his third run earned him a perfect score of 100 from the judges as well as his fifth consecutive gold medal in the event.
White’s third run included an 18-foot backside air, a 17-foot frontside double cork 1080, an 11-foot switch frontside double cork 1080, a 14-foot frontside cork 540, a 13-foot backside double cork 1260 and a 12-foot frontside double cork 1260. This was the first back-to-back double cork to be completed during the Winter X Games. White’s score was also the first perfect score in Winter X Games history. “I just came through it and everything felt perfect,” White said of his performance.
Two days prior to his unprecedented run, an ankle sprain forced White to withdraw from a slopestyle event. When he failed to show for Saturday’s pipe practice, it wasn’t known if he would even compete in Sunday’s final.
Read more about Sunday’s final here.
