Shaun White Qualifies For Snowboarding Halfpipe Final After Shaky Start

Olympic snowboarder Shaun White gave some fans quite a scare!

To date, White has won three gold medals from the 2018 PyeongChang Games, the 2010 Vancouver Games, and the 2006 Turin Games.

He also placed fourth at the Sochi Games. White holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals by a snowboarder and has also set a world record for the most X-Games gold medals.

However, he almost missed his chance to qualify for the gold in his latest qualifying session!

During his first qualifying run, White fell while trying to qualify for the Olympic halfpipe final at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, China. He was attempting to perform his signature move, the Double McTwist, when he fell.

“I let off the gas. I didn’t give it enough attention. Just a few more inches and I would have had it, and there I was, sliding on my back thinking ‘Wow, it’s going to come down to this last run,’” he said.

“I thought about my friends and family back home watching on TV,” he continued. “I was thinking a lot about, if that run went terribly, doing this press line, talking to everyone over and over about how ‘I’m still happy to be here, but sucks I can’t go to finals.’”

Fortunately, he made it on his second attempt, joining American teammates Taylor Gold and Chase Josey in the final round. Teammate Lucas Foster didn’t make the cut.

During his second attempt, White pulled off back-to-back double cork 1080s, consisting of two diagonal flips and three total rotations. He also pulled off his signature move without a hitch. He ended the qualifying session in fourth place, behind Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, Australia’s Scotty James, and Japan’s Ruka Hirano (no relation to Ayumu).

Knowing that this is his last Olympic match, Shaun White knows that he is going to have to pull off something spectacular for the finals.

“I’ll have bigger and better tricks I want to pull out for finals, and that’s the best part of it,” he added. “I’m going to be giving it my all every run, putting pressure on the other riders because I drop in before them.”

Shaun White, the oldest American snowboarder competing at 35-years-old, knows he is going to have to pull out all the stops to take home the gold.

“It would have been nice to just cruise in and have a great, easy first run. But I had to fight for it,” White said. “I had to work for it. That’s been this entire season, me just grinding it out, working for it.”

His teammate Taylor Gold said that White is “the most clutch guy ever” as White talked about the complexity of pulling off his signature move.

“You gotta respect it because it is still a trick that I invented years ago and it’s still relevant today because it’s a very difficult trick,” White said.

“Every time I go to the Olympics, it’s its own path, its own journey, and kind of like who I have to become to get to that place. Sometimes it’s easier than others and sometimes it’s harder,” White added. “This one’s definitely been more challenging.”

Shaun White seems to have been in snowboarding competitions forever – and his competitors aren’t letting him forget it! At the age of 19, he earned his nickname “The Flying Tomato” for his long ginger hair during his first Olympic competition in 2006.

A retired British snowboarder, Aimee Fuller, is now a BBC analyst who joked about how long White has been snowboarding in a recent interview with White.

"She kicked off the interview, and it was so funny, she was just like, 'So I remember watching you as a kid and thinking this guy's amazing — you were so inspiring,'" White recalled. "'And then I became an amateur snowboarder, then a pro snowboarder.' She's like, 'I went to two Olympics, I had an entire career, and now I'm broadcasting and you're still here. What's happening?!'"

"Something about that really stood out to me because it was like, 'Wow, it's cool I've been able to do it this long and to keep going,'" he added.

She’s not the only one who has fond memories of White. Heimana Reynolds, who is 12 years White’s junior, also recalled looking up to White growing up.

"He showed me a photo of us when he had gotten a photo with me at a competition I was at," White said. "I had this huge, red hair and he looked like a child. He was such a tiny little kid and it's just amazing."

"He's like, 'Dude, I wore your pants,'" he recalled Reynolds saying. "'I used to play your video game. It's just so cool you're here skating with me right now and we could be friends!'"