Snowboarding will be one of the most popular events at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, so it's time to get ready for all the gnarly fakies and buttery corks that will dominate your TV and laptop screens for much of February...
2018 Winter Olympics: Top Athletes, Event Schedule and Medal History
Feb 6, 2018
Elise Christie (C) of Great Britain leads a group during the women's 500m final event at the ISU World Cup Short Track Speed Skating in Seoul on November 18, 2017.
/ AFP PHOTO / JUNG Yeon-Je (Photo credit should read JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images)
The 2018 Winter Olympics are fast approaching, as Friday marks the opening ceremony of the Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Although the competition officially begins on Friday, curling will kick off its round-robin stage on Thursday, while ski jumping will also commence qualification rounds on the same day.
Great Britain's Elise Christie is expected to dominate in the short-track speedskating, which starts on Saturday, and the world champion will have her eye on Olympic glory.
Norway and Germany will once again field impressive squads, with the United States and Canada also dreaming of medals.
Russia will be absent from the Games after their recent doping punishment delivered by the International Olympic Committee. However, a selection of athletes from the country will be present after receiving individual clearance to compete.
Here is a full event schedule, including the start dates of each discipline and a look at top athletes to watch:
Per OlympStats, here's a look at the medal table from four years ago before Russia were stripped of 13 medals and then had seven returned:
Medal Table at Sochi
Russia (33): 13 gold, 11 silver, 9 bronze
United States (28): 9 gold, 7 silver, 12 bronze
Norway (26): 11 gold, 5 silver, 10 bronze
Canada (25): 10 gold, 10 silver, 5 bronze
Netherlands (24): 8 gold, 7 silver, 9 bronze
Germany (19): 8 gold, 6 silver, 5 bronze
Top Athletes
Elise Christie, Speedskating
DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS - FEBRUARY 14: (L-R) Minjeong Choi of South Korea (Silver medal), Elise Christie of Great Britain (Gold medal) and Marianne St-Gelais of Canada (Bronze medal) pose after the 500m Womens Final during ISU Short Track Speed Skating W
Christie rose to prominence in the last Games but became famous for all the wrong reasons.
The Scot was tipped for gold ahead of the competition. However, disaster struck as she suffered disqualification in each of her three events.
The 27-year-old was disqualified after a collision in the 500 metres, and she suffered further agony in the 1,000 and 1,500 due to a technical infringement and a second collision, respectively.
Christie was heartbroken by her performance but has risen to become the most recognisable figure in her sport.
(From L) South Korea's Shim Suk Hee competes as Great Britain's Elise Christie and China's Li Jianrou collide in the Women's Short Track 1000 m Semifinals at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the Sochi Winter Olympics on February 21, 2014. AFP PHOTO / JUN
The athlete is now world champion in the 1,000 and 1,500, and she grabbed a bronze in the 3,000 at the World Championships.
She also set a world record in the 500 at Salt Lake City in a World Cup event, underlining her potential for a huge haul in Pyeongchang.
The United States will be hoping snowboard icon Shaun White can once again take home gold as the double Olympic champion attempts to reclaim his throne.
White has been one of the greatest competitors in winter sports history, claiming a record 13 gold medals at the Winter X Games.
The snowboarder was jubilant when he earned a spot through U.S. qualifying:
The 31-year-old came fourth at Sochi 2014 but will have the chance to improve on that when he takes to the snow this year.
White recorded a perfect halfpipe score to win the U.S. Grand Prix in Snowmass, Colorado, and he will believe he has every chance of gold in Pyeongchang.
The Californian will be one of the most instantly recognisable faces at the competition, and his quality remains undeniable.
Shaun White Hospitalized After Suffering Injury While Snowboarding
Sep 5, 2017
LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 01: Shaun White on stage at WORLDZ Cultural Marketing Summit at Hollywood and Highland on August 1, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for PTTOW!)
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White suffered an injury over the weekend that required a trip to the hospital.
"Not exactly the birthday I was hoping for," White wrote on Instagram Tuesday. "I under rotated a double flip that sent me to the hospital. The biggest scare was seeing blood in my urine but after the tests all came back looking good I was released to go home. Life's going to knock you down.... get up, learn from your mistakes, and you'll be better for it! see you back on the mountain soon."
White turned 31 years old on Sunday—when he posted an image on Instagram from New Zealand.
It's unclear what's ailing White, specifically, but he sounds determined to work his way back to full strength soon as he aims for redemption on the Olympic stage.
After capturing gold at in Men's Halfpipe at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, White fell flat and finished fourth in the event during the 2014 Games in Sochi.
"It had been a while since I lost a major event like that, and I felt crummy because I had the ability to win," White told USA Today'sRachel Axonin February.
"It was just all those little things running into it. At the time, to be completely honest, I was getting a little burnt on snowboarding. It was just tough."
Assuming White's latest injury isn't too significant, he'll aim for a return to the podium at February's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Shaun White Confirms He Plans to Compete in 2018 Winter Olympics
Feb 17, 2016
Shaun White, of the United States, looks at the scoreboard after competing in the men's snowboard halfpipe final at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. White placed fourth. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Snowboarding extraordinaire Shaun White confirmed his plans to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics in an exclusive interview with Access Hollywood on Wednesday.
"Of course," White said when asked whether he'd compete in the Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, per Access Hollywood's Erin Biglow. "Oh yeah. 2018! That's the plan. ... It was already in my head from before. It takes a little time to get back in the swing of things."
White won gold medals in the halfpipe competitions in 2006 and 2010. He didn't make the podium in 2014, finishing fourth at the Sochi Games.
"Nothing's more motivating than a loss," he said.
The 29-year-old also asserted his longevity will be an asset in PyeongChang, saying, "It seems easier now, just because I'm more focused. I'm more aware of my strengths and weaknesses, and how to practice more consistently."
White said he got a trainer for the first time recently and is following a stricter diet after "winging it" during his younger years.
As was evident in the 2014 Winter Games, there are legitimate rivals for White to contend with this next time around. Japanese phenom Ayumu Hirano won the halfpipe silver in Sochi at age 15, while his compatriot, Taku Hiraoka, claimed bronze in the event won by Switzerland's Iouri Podladtchikov.
White was the relatively unchallenged, dominant force in extreme sports for a considerable period of time, notching gold medals in 2007 and 2011 as a skateboarder at the X Games during his prime.
But the best from White may still be yet to come. He's never had to bounce back from an Olympic defeat in snowboarding, which should only drive him to produce his best runs to date on the PyeongChang halfpipe.
Shaun White may not have won his only competition in the Sochi Olympics but that doesn't mean there wasn't anything positive to take out of the event...
5 Takeaways from Iouri Podladtchikov's Performance in Halfpipe at Sochi
Feb 12, 2014
Switzerland's Iouri Podladtchikov celebrates after his half pipe run during the men's snowboard halfpipe final at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. Podladtchikov won the gold medal. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
The 1998 Nagano Games marked the last time a non-American rider had topped the men’s Snowboarding Halfpipe podium, little-known Swiss rider Gian Simmen was the man responsible.
Iouri Podladtchikov, I-Pod for short, returned the gold to the land of multi-use pocket knives and movie villain bank accounts Tuesday night with a top score of 94.75. His efforts gave Switzerland its second gold (and overall) medal of these Sochi Olympics. This also is his second ever gold in competition after taking the top prize in the 2013 FIS World Championships in Quebec, Canada.
The Japanese duo of Ayumu Hirano (93.50) and Taku Hiraoka (92.25) weren't far behind but rounded out the podium with silver and bronze medals, leaving heavy favorite Shaun White (90.25) watching from the stands.
Here are five takeaways from I-Pod’s gold-medal performance.
Not From Russia With Love
There isn’t exactly such a thing as a Swiss last name. The country borrows from neighboring German, Italian and French heritages to fill the phone book.
So there is likely to be some confusion when the Swiss flag sits next to Podladtchikov’s name on TV.
That’s because he is Moscow-born, Zurich-raised.
There was a time when I-Pod flew under the Russian flag—specifically the 2006 Turin Games—but issues with the coaching and training staffs after a lackluster performance broke off that relationship. He represented Switzerland four years later in Vancouver.
In a pre-Sochi interview with Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, Podladtchikov defined his complicated allegiances.
"I'm 100 percent Russian-blooded, in a physical way, but I get homesick from Switzerland. I can't stay away from home for longer than two to three weeks. My heart is there," he said.
When pushed to answer why he passed up the chance to be one of Russia’s faces of the games along with Evgeni Plushenko and Alex Ovechkin, he simply responded with, “They had their chance. And it's too bad they blew it."
I-Pod’s victory was vindication rather than home-court advantage.
Busted Pipe? No Problem
Six days in, the Sochi Games are nothing if not controversial. Despite snowboarding’s “chill” identity, the halfpipe would not be excluded from the hubbub.
White, Danny Davis and Hannah Teter—the United States’ biggest riders—had less than complementary remarks about the pipe conditions at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park going into the event.
White called the course “disappointing.”
Teter said it was causing a “junk show” during practice and it was “not what halfpipe is supposed to be like.”
Davis, in his best political tone, simply said the course was “just not as fun.”
''It's a really great pipe, you can go really, really high in this one but the fact that it's a little bit more narrow than usual, potentially makes the trick combinations a little bit more rough."
The complaints weren’t necessarily unfounded—both Davis and White had landing issues in their two finals runs—but Podladtchikov put together two error-free runs in capturing the gold.
YOLO Iouri
In a sport that rewards the most successful pusher of physical boundaries, White rightfully ruled the halfpipe for a decade. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, he famously became the first rider to perform a Double McTwist 1260 in competition—dubbing it “The Tomahawk”.
Despite finishing fourth at the X Games Tignes last year, Podladtchikov put White and the rest of the snowboard world on notice when he landed the first ever Cab double cork 1440, leaving White in awe and playing catchup. For the layman, the X Games website defines it as “a switch double flip with four rotations. See for yourself. (It’s the fourth jump and comes 40 seconds in.)
Perhaps in a nod to the rapper Drake, the 25-year-old named his new trick the YOLO Flip. Draw your own conclusions.
Fast forward eleven months and I-Pod used his patented YOLO Flip to best the field, confusing some of the Olympics’ older viewers in the process.
White Out
Few athletes own their sport like White. He has accumulated back-to-back Olympic gold in halfpipe, eight X Games golds in superpipe, including four in a row from 2010-13 and five X Games golds in slopestyle.
Though some bemoan his privileged rise to stardom, riders have no choice but to respect White, and I-Pod is first in line to admit it, as quoted by Rachel Axon for USA Today.
“I have so much respect for that guy,” Podladtchikov said. “With having all that respect, always have and never talked [expletive] about him ever and hate all the people that do because you’re all morons. You don’t know what that guy has accomplished.”
With that came a healthy desire to best the best.
“I always wanted to beat him and I didn’t want to beat him falling. I wanted to do greater things, which is pretty to some people impossible goal."
Beat White he did, dethroning the sport’s most legendary figure.
Coincidentally, the two riders switched places in the final standings from four years ago in Vancouver. And White isn’t taking it lightly.
Not a Changing of the Guard, a Delay
It’s tempting to call Podladtchikov’s win a changing of the guard. White has been winning gold medals since 2003 and, at 27 years old, he’s surely a senior rider who will seriously question suiting up for Pyeongchang 2018.
I-Pod is no newbie, either. In fact, he’s just two years White’s junior.
The two guys on the podium to either side of Podladtchikov—Hirano (15 years old) and Hiraoka (18)—they represent the new guard. Neither was born when White received his first sponsorship from Burton.
But they’ll have to wait their turn for a chance at the top prize as I-Pod’s song gets its play.
Shaun White to Take Break from Snowboarding, Tour with Band
Feb 11, 2014
Shaun White didn't manage to medal in the men's halfpipe snowboarding final on Tuesday at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Following that disappointment, the 27-year-old superstar announced he will be taking a break from the sport to tour with his band.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports reported what White had to say regarding the rather surprising development:
Perhaps it is a rash decision that White made in the moment after finishing in fourth place—something very much out of the ordinary. However, White has made it clear in the past he's very serious about his rock band, Bad Things, in which he serves as a guitarist.
In a Rolling Stone interview from August 2013, White described how he prioritized his time with Bad Things to reporter Dan Hyman:
I drop everything for these guys. [Photo] shoots, practice, anything I need to do. Because it’s a very serious thing for us. ... I stop snowboarding and I completely dive into skating. I forget everything about snowboarding...and I focus completely on skateboarding. And that’s how its been for music.
Given that he's had raging success in both summer (skateboarding) and winter (snowboarding) extreme sports by focusing all his attention on one discipline, this hiatus from the slopes makes some sense.
The upcoming Winter X Games won't take place until the beginning of 2015, and skateboarding hasn't been at the forefront of White's versatile career in recent years.
There are also health factors to consider, as White has dealt with a variety of injury issues that may have hampered his performance in Sochi. As the two-time reigning gold medalist in the men's halfpipe, it was stunning that White failed to even crack the podium.
In spite of falling short, U.S. women's soccer player Tobin Heath weighed in and said White was still the best at his craft:
If music does become the focus for White moving forward, it will be interesting to see what type of tunes Bad Things produces. As committed as White has been in the past, this could be the dawn of a new era in which he becomes a musician first and an athlete second, given all that he's accomplished as the latter over the past decade.
Shaun White Fails to Defend Olympic Gold, Silence Detractors & Turn Back Time
Feb 11, 2014
There comes a time in every man's life when he looks in the mirror and sees something different. He sees someone different.
His face looks weathered and worn. His eyes look tired, maybe even sullen, definitely bruised. His hair looks shorter, more grown up. More professional.
When a man—any man, but in this case, let's call him Olympic champion Shaun White—looks in the mirror and sees how his face has changed over the years, it has to make him wonder if he can still be the same man he used to be.
Is it possible? Is it possible to be the same person you were a decade ago, with all the things in life you've experienced? With all the wisdom you've gained from getting older?
Can you look in that mirror and convince yourself you can do the things you never thought twice about doing before? At some point in your life, you thrived on doing the impossible, on proving everyone wrong when they said the things you could imagine were not feasible. Can you continue—with all you know and all you've learned and seen and experienced and lived—to be the same? To be fearless?
Can you do it all when everyone else wants you to fail? When your own teammates revel in your failure? At what point do you start to wonder what you have left to prove?
It's more than just being the same, really. It's about being better. When you have a 15-year-old tweeting that you stole his spot at the Olympics before you dropped out of the slopestyle event, you have to be better. Better than the teenager, better than the riders from Canada who called you chicken and better than Danny Freaking Davis, who, whatever you think of White and their rivalry over the years, has proven to be the worst teammate imaginable.
Every day had to be about being better than the day before, than the year before, than the career achievement before.
White had to be better. And in the halfpipe finals in Sochi, he flat out wasn't.
The shame is that White did record the best score of the day, just in the wrong round. White had the top mark in the qualifying round, posting a score of 95.75 in his first run, besting the field by more than three points and advancing him straight through to the finals.
The 95.75 would have beaten eventual gold medalist Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland in the finals, too. Podladtchikov's second run of 94.75 was the top score of the finals, while White's 90.25 was only good for a distant fourth.
It was all there for White. The last rider of the night, he knew the score he had to get, but he just wasn't able to finish the run as smoothly as we've become accustomed to him doing at big events.
White had to put all the experience and all the wisdom to work for him during his finals run in Sochi, while somehow leaving all the distractions—all the fears from that creep in from experience—at the top of the hill.
SOCHI, RUSSIA - FEBRUARY 11: Shaun White of the United States reacts after competing in the Snowboard Men's Halfpipe Finals on day four of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park on February 11, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Camero
In advance of the downhill run, White sat down with NBC for a piece that chronicled his career over the last few years, stemming from the horrific crash that sent him to the hospital.
"It's hard to show up at the mountain and have somebody go, 'Are you ready to do this trick?' when the first time you tried it put you in the hospital," White said during the piece.
"I talk in my interviews about the dangers and this and that. I'm just intimidated."
That quote was from a few months ago, and White clearly overcame that intimidation to qualify for the Olympics and get through to the finals. For White to pull off the kinds of moves he did during the halfpipe competition in Sochi, he certainly triumphed over those doubts.
But the wobbles on the landings. The crash during the first run. Was it the halfpipe, or was it the fears? The 23-year-old in Vancouver sticks those landings. The teenager back in Turin doesn't let the past creep in.
And yet, those riders didn't have the same experiences as White does now. A black eye and a bum wrist kept him out of the slopestyle after he felt the course was too dangerous, leaving him to focus on the halfpipe.
Would the younger White have done that? Four years ago, White almost decapitated himself during an X Games halfpipe run just days before the Vancouver Olympics, but he strapped his helmet back on and won both events.
Maybe being older and wiser isn't such a good thing.
Even without a medal in Sochi, it has been an amazing ride for White, from X Games wunderkind to Olympic gold medalist, global and cultural icon and brand name. Seriously, go to the "About" page of White's personal website. You can navigate to the left to read about the guy and to the right to learn about the brand.
Shaun White is a brand. Tell that to the wild-haired kid from a decade ago.
In many ways, White's success over the last decade—the success that grew his global brand into what it is today—is what separates him from the rest of the snowboarding community. All we've heard all week leading up to the halfpipe competition was how White doesn't care about the sport anymore. White isn't looking to grow the insular world of snowboarding as much as his own brand name.
If you listen to the elite riders in the sport, it would sound like White is yesterday's news, a rider whose time in the sport has passed. White had a chance to prove them all wrong. Standing at the top of the mountain, White was the last rider with a chance to do something nobody in the history of the sport has done before: win a third Olympic gold medal.
SOCHI, RUSSIA - FEBRUARY 11: Shaun White of the United States crashes out in the Snowboard Men's Halfpipe Finals on day four of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park on February 11, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/G
In his first run of the finals on Tuesday, White got incredible air out of the pipe, crossing the five-meter mark that no other competitor could do, but failed to land his third hit cleanly, then smacked the deck as he entered the pipe on his fifth, setting up incredible drama for his final run.
There was no victory lap for White like he had in Vancouver, winning the gold with the score on his first run four years ago. White needed to go out in his second run and win it.
He needed to prove something.
And he couldn't do it.
Maybe it was the distractions of being a brand. Maybe it was the fear creeping in from all the experiences those younger, less seasoned riders don't have. Or maybe the other riders have finally caught up to him.
Maybe, when he looks in the mirror, he'll see that time is starting to as well.
Shaun White Fails to Medal in Men's Halfpipe at Sochi 2014 Olympics
Feb 11, 2014
Shaun White won the previous two gold medals in the men's halfpipe snowboarding competition at the Winter Olympics.
However, the 2014 Games proved to be a different story in Sochi, Russia, as the prolific American failed to medal in the halfpipe (via Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports):
White finished behind Iouri Podladtchikov, who took home gold, and Ayumu Hirano and Taku Hiraoka of Japan, who won silver and bronze, respectively.
Here are the final scores and medalists in the halfpipe (via Bleacher Report):
The lack of United States presence on the podium was far from expected, as Alyssa Roenigk of ESPN points out:
Following the event, Danny Davis talked about White's finish:
White's two runs had flaws, as the star fell on his first run, forcing him into a position where he had to deliver a massive performance in the final run of the competition to secure gold.
In that run, White slipped twice, keeping him off the podium, a scenario few imagined coming into the competition.
Scrutiny followed White as he decided to pull out of the men's slopestyle event. Instead, he elected to focus on the halfpipe rather than undertake the difficult course coming off various injuries, per a statement released through TeamUSA.org:
After much deliberation with my team, I have made the decision to focus solely on trying to bring home the third straight gold medal in halfpipe for Team USA. The difficult decision to forego slopestyle is not one I take lightly as I know how much effort everyone has put into holding the slopestyle event for the first time in Olympic history, a history I had planned on being part of.
That strategy didn't exactly win him any new fans, and it looks worse now that he's come up short in the competition he elected to focus on.
At least another American, Sage Kotsenburg, won the gold in the slopestyle—the maiden top prize in the Sochi Games—as Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports pointed out:
But the ramifications surrounding this letdown for White extend back to that event.
White's absence diminished interest surrounding the slopestyle due to his star power, and a loss on the halfpipe after his previous dominance is a disappointment. The 27-year-old has been the biggest name in snowboarding for more than a decade but failed to live up to the hype in the halfpipe at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
To be fair, though, White has been dealing with a variety of health issues. Injuries to both ankles and a jammed wrist suffered in practice leading up to a planned appearance in the slopestyle competition likely contributed to his lackluster result.
Hopefully White can bounce back and perhaps give the halfpipe—and maybe even the slopestyle—at least one more shot at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
