Shaun White
Jackson Pennings
2006 and 2010 Review
Way back in 2006 at the winter Olympics in Turino, Italy, Shaun White the snowboarding phenom dominated the half-pipe and took home the gold medal. Back then, Shaun was only 19 years old. In 2010, at the winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, again Shaun amazingly took home the gold in men's Half-pipe snowboarding. 2010 was one of his best performances as a pro boarder. Shaun knit together an unbelievable run, starting out getting huge air on his first jump, and ending with a beautiful Double McTwist 1260, a trick almost no snowboarder can land.
2014 in Sochi
This year, the winter Olympics are being held in Sochi, Russia. At the beginning of the Olympics, Shaun was signed up to compete in Men's Slope-style Snowboarding and Men's Half-pipe Snowboarding. Shaun dropped out of Slope-style to have some extra time to work on getting his third gold medal in the Half-pipe in a row, a feat no american has ever accomplished. Sadly, Shaun didn't even get a medal this year, as he watched Iouri Podlatchicov steal the judges and make it to the top of the podium. Many people think that what could have been Shaun's winning run was greatly underscored. Shaun was the final person to go in the last run of the finals, and with all the pressure on him, Shaun just couldn't deliver. Shaun stitched together what might have been the best run of his career had it not been for a bobbled landing on what is known as the YOLO flip. Shaun and this year's gold medalist Iouri Podlatchicov, are the only two people who have ever landed the trick in competition. When Shaun tried to push the limits and go for gold three times in a row, he came up just a couple points short.