Shaun White

The 2014 Winter Olympics have already provided plenty of captivating storylines and heated battles for medals, and Day 4 is right around the corner with more action.

Day 3 was highlighted by American Julia Mancuso adding to her legendary status with a bronze medal in the super-combined, a Netherlands sweep in the men’s 500-meter long-track speedskating event and Canadian history on the moguls hill.

Michel Mulder won speedskating gold for the Dutch, with his teammate Jan Smeekens taking home silver and his brother, Ronald Mulder, capturing the bronze. For men’s moguls, Canada’s Alex Bilodeau became the first two-time Olympic gold medalist in freestyle skiing, with teammate Mikael Kingsbury winning the silver.

Now that Day 4 is on tap, let’s take a look at the television schedule, which provides the easiest way to keep up with the medal tally via the broadcasts.

Event	Time	TV Listing
Women's Curling (USA vs. Russia)	3 a.m. ET	NBCSN
Men's Curling (USA vs. China)	5 a.m. ET	USA
Cross-Country (Individual Sprint)	5 a.m. ET	NBCSN
Speedskating (Women's 500-meter)	6 a.m. ET	NBCSN
Figure Skating (Pairs Short Program)	10 a.m. ET	NBCSN
Women's Hockey (Russia vs. Japan)	10 a.m. ET	MSNBC
Ski Jumping (Women's Normal Hill)	1:30 p.m. ET	NBCSN
Speedskating (Women's 500-meter)	1:30 p.m. ET	NBCSN
NBC Daytime (Women's Single Luge, Women's Slopestyle Freestyle Skiing, Cross-Country Individual Sprint)	3 p.m. ET	NBC
Women's Curling (USA vs. Germany)	5 p.m. ET	CNBC
NBC Primetime (Men's Halfpipe, Women's Slopestyle Freestyle Skiing, Figure Skating Pairs Short, Ski Jumping Women's Normal Hill)	8 p.m. ET	NBC

While there will be a number of events to capture the attention of the public during Day 4, two jump out as golden opportunities for Americans to medal.

Men’s Halfpipe

Shaun White is a legitimate rock star in these Olympics, with a number of X Games titles and two Olympic golds already under his belt.

The superstar has been counting down the days until the Sochi Olympics for quite some time:

Unfortunately for the artist sometimes known as the “Flying Tomato,” he has dealt with a wrist injury, a shiner under his eye, an ankle sprain and a shoulder jam in recent weeks and had to pull out of the slopestyle event to focus on the halfpipe.

If White is to win another gold, he will have to fight through the bumps and bruises and hold off 15-year-old challenger Ayumu Hirano of Japan. 

Hirano won the silver medal at the 2013 X Games Superpipe behind back-to-back double-cork 1080s and is the biggest threat to White’s snowboarding throne.

Women’s 500-meter long-track speedskating

Heather Richardson represents the United States’ best opportunity to reach the podium in the women’s 500-meter long-track speedskating competition.

The former inliner made the switch to long-track speedskating before her career took off, but, as she told John Powers of The Boston Globe, it wasn’t always a thing of beauty:

It wasn’t very pretty. Derek Parra, my coach at the time, called me “Bambi on ice,” so you can only imagine that.

A lot of us have followed the footsteps of KC Boutiette, Jen Rodriguez, Derek — all of them did it. We were waiting for inline to make its Olympic debut but we just didn’t see it coming. So we took our opportunity on ice.

Richardson will look to become the first American to win gold in this discipline since Bonnie Blair did it in 1994.

While Richardson has an excellent chance to end up on the podium, the best skater in the world in this event is Lee Sang-hwa from South Korea.

Lee won the gold in Vancouver in the 2010 Games and has dominated the discipline since. She finished first or second in the overall World Cup standings every year in the 500-meters since 2011.

Keeping Lee from the gold-medal position may be too tall an order for Richardson, but the American would likely be thrilled with an Olympic medal of any color.

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From an American perspective, there is no bigger superstar in the 2014 Winter Olympics than Shaun White (at least until Gracie Gold is gracing the cover of every cereal box in the future should she win gold).

White, otherwise known as the “Flying Tomato” in the past, is already a legend, but he will be trying to cement his status as the best halfpipe snowboarder of all-time with an unprecedented third straight gold medal. 

If his Twitter page is any indication, White is ready to compete for gold in Sochi:

Here is the schedule for the men’s halfpipe event that White will look to win:

Men’s Halfpipe Qualification

Date: Tuesday, Feb. 11

Time: 5 a.m. ET, 2 p.m. Sochi time and 10 a.m. GMT 

TV Broadcast: NBC at 8 p.m. ET (rebroadcast) and BBC at 10 a.m. GMT

Men’s Halfpipe Semifinals

Date: Tuesday, Feb. 11

Time: 10 a.m. ET, 7 p.m. Sochi time and 3 p.m. GMT 

TV Broadcast: NBC at 8 p.m. ET (rebroadcast) and BBC at 3 p.m. GMT

Men’s Halfpipe Finals

Date: Tuesday, Feb. 11

Time: 12:30 p.m. ET, 9:30 p.m. Sochi time and 5:30 p.m. GMT  

TV Broadcast: NBC 8 p.m. ET (rebroadcast) and BBC 5:30 p.m. GMT

As with any Olympics, there will be some obstacles in the way for White. Let’s dig into a discussion on some of the things he will have to overcome if there is to be gold around White’s neck following the halfpipe.

Dealing with Distractions

Coming into the Olympics, White intended on competing in the slopestyle event as well. However, he withdrew from the event fewer than 24 hours before the qualifying runs were to take place, which elicited some criticism from his fellow competitors.

"Mr. White... It's easy to find excuses to pull out of a contest when you think you can't win," Sebastien Toutant tweeted.

Maxence Parrot also tweeted the following, before erasing it: "Shaun knows he won't be able to win the slopes, that’s (sic) why he pulled out. He's scared!" 

White is a veteran and should know how to look past distractions like this, but it’s just another potential thing weighing on his mind before the halfpipe competition.

Fighting Through Injury and a Difficult Course

White is coming into these Olympics battered and bruised.

Over the past few weeks, he has dealt with a wrist injury, a shiner under his eye, an ankle sprain and a shoulder jam. If there were ever a Games event for a challenger to emerge victorious over White, it would be this one.

What’s more, all the halfpipe snowboarders are going to be forced to deal with a difficult course.

Workers had to make adjustments to the steep course that was laced with chattery ice after numerous riders crashed during practice runs. American Hannah Teter (2006 gold medalist), expressed her dismay in an Associated Press interview that was relayed by ESPN.com: 

When you see every other person fall, you know something's wrong. It's a little dangerous. I've seen more people fall today than I saw all season. It's dangerous because it's crappy. … The first contest is tomorrow and nobody's ready. They haven't been able to practice their tricks. They're trying to stay alive every run. It's harsh.

Holding Off “Mumu”

Every rider has to deal with distractions, the difficult course and various degrees of bumps and bruises. What will ultimately determine if White wins the gold in Sochi is his ability to hold off Ayumu Hirano of Japan.

Hirano is the likely heir to White’s throne in the snowboarding world, and he is only 15 years old. Despite a potential burgeoning rivalry, White enjoys watching “Mumu,” as he told Jason Blevins of The Denver Post:

I love watching him ride. It's a nice reminder about the sport to me ... because he's not the biggest guy out there, and I'm not the biggest. It doesn't really make a difference, the size. It's all your mind-set and how you use the terrain, and he's a great example of that. 

Hirano won the silver medal at the 2013 X Games' superpipe behind his back-to-back double-cork 1080s. Look for him to try to put on an even bigger show in Sochi with the Olympics gold medal on the line.

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Shaun White's time has arrived at Sochi, as his pursuit of becoming the first American to conquer the Olympic halfpipe at three consecutive Winter Olympics culminates Tuesday. And after recording the highest score in qualifying and earning a bye into the final, he has the three-peat squarely in his sights.

White, no doubt, is following a routine that's as precise as a German train schedule. With two Olympic golds plus another 13 from the Winter X Games already locked down, he obviously knows how to get pumped up for the big one and probably could give NFL players tips on how to fine-tune their psyches for the Super Bowl.  

If White secures his three-peat, there's no telling how long the celebration will last. The Today show might give him his own lounge. A call from the White House wouldn't be a shock. And there could be a key to the city waiting in his hometown of San Diego, where White is the most famous redhead since Bill Walton.

Among U.S. athletes in new-age Winter Olympic sports that date back only to the '90s, perhaps only Apolo Anton Ohno had more staying power than White. Ohno garnered eight total medals in short-track speedskating from 2002-2010, but even he never managed three straight golds.

White enters as the favorite on most medal-prediction lists, including Sports Illustrated's, with 15-year-old Ayumu Hirano of Japan generally considered his greatest threat. But there's no guarantee White's third descent into the Olympic halfpipe will be charmed. 

White has been dinged up this season, suffering shoulder and ankle injuries while traversing a rocky road to Sochi. Once he reached Russia, he jammed his wrist on the slopestyle course, which several competitors found severely lacking. (Guess $51 billion just doesn't buy what it used to.) 

That setback led White to withdraw from the new Olympic event, where he was expected to provide ratings gold for NBC, and also brought his critics darting out of the woodwork.

White's withdrawal could have been viewed as an overdue show of wisdom by a party animal who in 2012 was arrested in Nashville for being drunk and disorderly. Instead, some members of snowboarding's youthful fraternity treated it as cowardice.

When White issued a statement saying "the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympic goals on," Canadian rival Sebastian Toutant unleashed this slap on Twitter: "Mr. White... It's easy to find excuses to pull out of a contest when you think you can't win."

Another Canadian snowboarder, Max Parrot, took it a step further, tweeting: "Shaun knows he won't be able to win the slopes, that's why he pulled out. He's scared!"

This was a very rare case of athletes from the normally peaceful and passive nation of Canada being at odds with an American somewhere other than a hockey rink. Toutant and Parrot later deleted their tweets, but by then, they had gone viral and the damage was done. 

Adding to the criticism was the unfortunate truth that White's withdrawal meant an Olympic slot that could have gone to another U.S. snowboarder instead was wasted.

Now, if White wins anything less than gold on Tuesday, there could be a host of snowboarders ready to thumb noses in his direction and say his time has passed.

At the age of 27, the ginger-haired White certainly isn't as outdated as Carrot Top, but the "Flying Tomato" is in danger of seeing his image go splat.

In a sport that's saturated with teen sensations, he is walking a fine line between reigning as the life of the party and being the old dude who looks seriously out of place at a college bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkpO6zSVdkE

That division perhaps began when White put a target on his back by going mainstream with a line of apparel for Target stores. It's no secret he has always distanced himself from the bulk of snowboarding's hipsters, and that chasm nudged wider when he trimmed his long hair last summer and began assuming a suit-and-tie corporate look for these Games.

“He’s kind of separated himself from the sport,” is how 2006 Olympic snowboarder Andy Finch assessed it for The Boston Globe. “What he’s done is incredible. But for most of these guys, snowboarding is about going out and having fun. Shaun’s looking out for No. 1.”

It seems reasonable to suspect that White is more popular with athletes from other sports and other nations than he is with his own crew. He's had to deal with all of this backbiting from other snowboarders, but during the broadcast of the opening ceremonies, you could see scads of athletes jockeying to take a picture with him. 

Maybe White's detractors are tired of hearing that an athlete who never hangs with the crowd is the face of their sport.

Maybe they feel they can do just fine without him, particularly after seeing the slopestyle gold go to American Sage Kotsenburg, a self-described nonconformist who boasts that he hasn't been in the gym since last September.

We'll have to wait until Tuesday to see whether all of the chatter and sniping hampers White's bid to prove yet again that he's the closest thing there is to a human gyroscope.

And make no mistake, he'll have a lot to gain, but also plenty to lose.

Tom Weir has covered eight Winter Olympics as a columnist and reporter for USA Today. You can follow him on Twitter at @TomWeirSports.

Shaun White has yet to compete at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and yet some already view his Sochi run as a disappointment. 

Of course, much of that criticism stems from White's controversial decision to withdraw from the slopestyle event after jamming his wrist during a practice run. While White received flack for backing out, most notably from Canadian snowboarders Max Parrot and Sebastien Toutant, he justified his decision at the time by claiming a focus on the halfpipe, per ESPN.com:

I can understand if it's your first time to the Olympics, you wouldn't understand a decision like the one I made. But you set your goals according to what's important to you. Halfpipe is important to me and I didn't want to jeopardize that.

I'm OK with that. It keeps me going, keeps me progressing, keeps me guessing. And I'm hoping to have a great Olympics. I'm feeling very, very confident and healthy, which is nice.

Well, the halfpipe is fast approaching, and White has two days to validate his decision and win his third consecutive gold medal in the event.

In terms of challengers, the field is fairly thin. Fifteen-year-old Japanese sensation Ayumu Hirano looks like the stiffest competition for White, but the precocious star will need to increase his difficulty level to match White's potential maximum score. "Mumu," as he is known, might be the American's successor at the halfpipe, but he seems unlikely to supplant White this year.

Elsewhere, American teammate Danny Davis has a legitimate chance to reach the podium, and he could threaten White if the favorite slips up. Davis missed 2010 after an accident forced him to withdraw, but he recently won gold at the X Games and features a backside 360 and a McTwist.

However, White's biggest challenge may once again be the course itself. It's an unfortunate deja vu for White, who once again sees dangerous flaws in the course design:

White described those faults to USA Today's Lindsay Jones, noting the uneven conditions along the pipe:

"Today was, uh, not the best," White said, trying to be polite, as he stopped for a brief interview with several reporters after the session.

"The first day, the walls were a little over-[vertical], so everybody was doing airs, and then landing like pretty flat," White said. "Today, they made the walls better so everybody lands [correctly], but in the flat bottom, where they cut it, it's like a bump, so everyone is riding along and then hits the bump, and that's really not very good."

Jones notes that the course will be re-cut before the final training session on Monday, so White and the other snowboarders who crashed numerous times should find the conditions more amiable.

Even while his confidence might not be totally unassailable, the halfpipe is White's domain. He dissuaded any concerns about an ankle injury he was nursing coming into Sochi and has had time to rest whatever issues his wrist may have caused from the slopestyle accident.

The halfpipe event will ultimately be what defines White's Olympic legacy, and in that regard his reputation is still flawless. For an intense competitor like White, all the recent hand-wringing and criticism should only catalyze a better performance in his signature event.

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London had a number of superstars, including Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, the United States women’s gymnastics team and Usain Bolt among others.

If there is one athlete in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi who could be considered a superstar stateside before the actual events take place, it would be snowboarder Shaun White.

White is the two-time defending Olympic gold medalist in halfpipe snowboarding and is a one-man dynasty when it comes to the sport. He has countless X Games medals, plenty of endorsements, was known by the marketable nickname of the “Flying Tomato” and has reached legendary status even though he is still competing.

However, White pulled out of the slopestyle snowboarding event to focus solely on defending his crown in the halfpipe. Here is the schedule and broadcast information for the men’s halfpipe finals that will feature White:

Men’s Halfpipe Finals

Date: Feb. 11

Time: 12:30 p.m. ET, 9:30 p.m. Sochi time and 5:30 p.m. GMT 

TV Broadcast: NBC 8 p.m. ET (rebroadcast) and BBC 5:30 p.m. GMT

White is dealing with an ankle injury, and if there was ever going to be a challenger to take the gold from him, it will be in these Olympics. 

With that in mind, let’s dig into a discussion on some of White’s biggest competitors in the snowboarding event.

Ayumu Hirano, Japan

White’s biggest challenger for the gold just so happens to be 15 years old and the likely heir to White’s snowboarding throne.

Ayumu Hirano of Japan, otherwise known as “Mumu,” was the silver medalist at the 2013 X Games Superpipe behind White and featured back-to-back double-cork 1080s. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise considering the stage if Hirano tried to increase the level of difficulty of his tricks with a chance at gold on the line.

While he may be a threat to White, the American enjoys watching “Mumu,” per Jason Blevins of The Denver Post:

I love watching him ride. It's a nice reminder about the sport to me ... because he's not the biggest guy out there, and I'm not the biggest. It doesn't really make a difference, the size. It's all your mind-set and how you use the terrain, and he's a great example of that. 

Hirano mixes style and poise with the ability to soar high into the air despite his slight frame. He should put on a show in Sochi.

Danny Davis, United States

White’s American teammate would have been in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver were it not for an accident on an all-terrain vehicle merely weeks before the Games.

Davis will finally get his chance at the Olympics podium in Sochi after winning a gold at the most recent X Games. He features a backside 360 and a McTwist and will likely try to bust them out at the Olympics.

After the crash that cost him a spot in 2010, Davis told Rachel Axon of USA Today that he is thrilled to have this chance:

I wasn't ready to be done. Like I've always said, to have the chance to go to Russia, to have the chance to be on an Olympic team, I'm psyched. It wouldn't have killed me if I didn't make it, but I'm very happy that I did and I'm very excited for the opportunity.

Look for him to take advantage of his chance in Sochi.

Yuri Podladchikov, Switzerland

Yuri Podladchikov will be competing for Switzerland, but he was actually born in the host country of Russia. Don’t be surprised if the home crowd pulls for him as he tries to unseat White atop the podium.

He finished just off the podium in fourth in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Podladchikov is known as “iPod,” and he won the 2012 World Snowboarding Championship after finishing in the top three in nine straight events. What’s more, “iPod” became the first snowboarder ever to successfully land a "Cab double cork 1440" in competition.

If he busts that out again in Sochi, a medal may be in the cards.

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Acclaimed American Olympian Shaun White made a big 180 this week and he didn't have a snowboard attached to his feet.

Heading into the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, White had the ambitious goal of bringing home two gold medals to add to the pair he has already earned by winning halfpipe competitions at Turin and Vancouver.

But on Wednesday, White abruptly pulled himself from the slopestyle competition—a move that rubbed many people the wrong way. As Cindy Boren of the Washington Post noted, White gave reporters no hint that he would be taking himself out of slopestyle, merely an hour before he delivered a statement to NBC.

Roughly one hour prior, White gave no indication of his decision during a press conference with reporters, saying that the wrist injury he had suffered during slopestyle training earlier in the week had been “blown out of proportion a little bit” and joking about the challenge of balancing the conflicting schedules for practice and competition in both disciplines.

“I’m just going to rely on my super strength to take me through,” White said. “That’s basically the go-to plan.”

Then White pulled a fast one on the Winter Olympic world, giving the following explanation, via Boren.

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.

While the course certainly had safety concerns and was responsible for breaking a collarbone of Norway's Torstein Horgmo, White's comments to the press give no indication of an injury, and it seems as if he merely got cold feet.

It's no surprise that White is the favorite to win his third straight halfpipe gold, as he has made a living off of big tricks and big air on the big stage.

But the slopestyle? Not so much.

White was considered medal-worthy in snowboarding's other event, but he doesn't have nearly as much clout on the slopes. This was duly noted by some of his Canadian competitors, who razzed White about being unable to finish first place in the slopestyle, per Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports.

It's admirable that White wants to focus on one event to achieve Olympic gold, but it's a shame that it took him so long to make up his mind. By waiting until the 11th hour, White essentially wasted a spot for another person to achieve their lifelong dream.

Sean Gregory of Time shared some comments from a disappointed 18-year-old Brandon Davis, who likely would have been tabbed if White made his mind up earlier.

I should be there, but Shaun decided he didn’t want to do it. It’s not a big deal for him. But for most people, the Olympics is a whole other level. It could have kicked started my career a bit, and gotten the ball rolling. But Shaun kind of dropped out like it’s nothing.

It's easy to see why Davis seems bitter as he sits at his home in California instead of being in Sochi for what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Now, White better win the gold in the halfpipe event or he'll be looked at as one of the biggest disappointments of the Olympics. If he doesn't win gold, his image will be further sullied by a selfish decision that didn't pay off.

In the end, this move probably won't do much to hurt White's celebrity or marketability, but it will certainly be remembered by his peers in the snowboarding world.

Shaun White is already an Olympic hero and one of the luminaries in the world of extreme sports, but his late withdrawal from the slopestyle competition on Feb. 5 means his result in the halfpipe will be more scrutinized than ever. If he fails to take gold, get ready for a lot of finger pointing.

As White phrased his withdrawal via the Associated Press, it is done out of an abundance of caution, a rarity for a pro snowboarder: "With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on." 

By "other goals," White can only be referring to the other event he qualified for at Sochi: halfpipe. White will be coming down the chute in search of his third consecutive Olympic gold in the event after claiming the top spot at the 2006 Games in Turin and at Vancouver in 2010.

He ensured the second gold medal on the strength of his first run alone, giving way to a thrilling exhibition on the second run that saw him bust out a Double McTwist 1260 to earn an even higher score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak_29sPEMc0

White owns 13 gold medals from the Winter X Games, including five in slopestyle, although his last one in that event came in 2009. With more opportunities for tricks on the downhill course, there is also a greater abundance of injuries in slopestyle. Plus, White had already jammed his wrist during halfpipe practice earlier in the day.

Understandably, White's U.S. teammates were somewhat chafed that he had waited so long to withdraw from slopestyle. 

As Chas Guldemond phrased it per Rachel Axon of USA Today: "There was a lot of guys that I trained really hard with sitting in that fifth spot. It's pretty unfortunate that they missed their opportunity to come to the Games, so that was a pretty big blow. I'm surprised that he pulled out so late. I knew it was coming sometime this year."

As noted by Axon, other riders had referred to White's decision to withdraw from other events earlier in the season. 

Teammate Sage Kotsenburg translated Guldemond's sentiment into snowboarder speak: "It kind of sucks that we didn't have four people here."

Guldemond just missed an automatic qualification for the final after coming in fifth in his heat. Kotsenburg and Ryan Stassel finished eighth and ninth in their heat, and all three American men will try to claim one of the four remaining spots in the final as they battle 18 other boarders in the semifinal on Feb. 8.

After the qualifying runs on Feb. 6, numerous athletes admitted the conditions for slopestyle were a little rough despite the sunny weather and high scores, so White's hesitance is not without grounding.

"It's getting better. Not fully perfect yet. Pretty icy. Makes it hard to shape the jumps clean," Staale Sandbech of Norway told the AP.

American Jamie Anderson earned a spot in the finals, but she also admitted to the AP the conditions were harsh: "It's a challenging course. A lot of impact for everyone. Little 15-year-olds are, like, 'I'm not even old and my back is still sore every day. Not even from crashing, just from riding.'"

The course claimed one victim in qualifying, as Norway's Kjersti Buaas took a nasty spill that included a cringe-inducing fall. Fortunately, it appears she will be alright as she took to Twitter to allay concern and stated she had merely ruptured a muscle. She even did the fans the courtesy of linking to a Facebook picture of herself displaying the bandage around her midsection.

Had that been White taking the fall, it might well have derailed his chances to seek a third gold in the halfpipe.

Buaas' crash is a cautionary tale, and with the slopestyle coming first, it's both pitiable and understandable that White pulled out of the event. After all, he is weaker at slopestyle than halfpipe and considers it the more dangerous endeavor of the two. If the halfpipe took place before slopestyle, his decision to withdraw might well have been different.

The men's snowboarding halfpipe competition will take place on Feb. 11 with the qualification at 5 a.m. ET, the semifinal at 10 a.m. and the final at 12:30 p.m. If White does not emerge as the "Golden Boy," his audible in slopestyle will only be criticized even more harshly.

If you tuned in to watch the qualifying round of the Olympic men's snowboarding slopestyle competition on Thursday, there was one enormous name among the medal contenders missing from the event.

Shaun White, without a doubt the most famous snowboarder on the planet and a bona fide American household name, pulled out of slopestyle competition after jamming his wrist during a training run on the difficult Sochi course.

The men's slopestyle event is suddenly—and quite noticeably—Tomato free.

That news has not gone over well in the snowboarding community. Nothing about White does these days.

White told reporters his wrist is fine but called out the Sochi organizers for their course design, releasing a statement that read, in part, via Today.com:

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. ...

... With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on. 

White made sure to mention how hard the decision was, given that Sochi is the first Olympics to hold an official slopestyle competition, but stressed that his wrist wasn't the reason for his withdrawal. White asserts his decision was one of safety—of Olympic preservation.

His fellow competitors didn't take too kindly to that decision, with some riders going so far as to suggest White didn't want to participate because he wasn't going to win.

From CTVNews.ca, Canadian snowboarder Sebastien Toutant wrote on Twitter, "Mr White... It's easy to find excuses to pull out of a contest when you think you can't win..."

"Shaun knows he won't be able to win the slopes, that's why he pulled out. He's scared!" tweeted fellow Canadian snowboarder Maxence Parrot, who is the defending X Games champion in the event.

The report noted that both tweets have since been deleted. Parrot, one of the leaders after the early qualifying round, publicly apologized, saying it was a disappointment to have an event where the best riders in the world aren't competing.

Ultimately, the backlash came not because one of the best riders pulled out of an Olympic competition, but because Shaun White did.

White is the most polarizing figure in the world of snowboarding. He's an outsider in a sport he helped make as popular as it is today.

White is as famous in his sport as any winter Olympian is in any sport. Make no mistake, without White—and without the popularity of the sport that grew from events like the X Games, where White became that breakout star—there would probably be no Olympic slopestyle snowboarding.

There is no debate to White's historical importance in the sport of snowboarding—and all extreme sports—and its rise to prominence at the international Olympic level.

Kids today grow up wanting to be snowboarders because of White. He is the Tiger Woods of his sport, where other riders resent him because of his excellence while reaping the benefits of his existence.

Did White pull out of the slopestyle competition because he thought the course was too dangerous, or because he thought he wouldn't win? Clearly some of the other competitors feel it was the latter, and truthfully it may be.

That criticism may be valid. Would Tiger Woods get ripped by other golfers for pulling out of a tournament he wasn't going to win to prepare for a major championship the following week? You bet he would.

Does White, like Woods, get held to a higher standard than everyone else in his sport? You bet he does.

Certainly White has brought some of the criticism—this week and in the past—upon himself. In 2010, he trained at a private halfpipe location built by his sponsor, Red Bull, in preparation for the Vancouver Olympics.

He has notoriously kept himself away from the snowboarding community at times, focusing more on his brand—he has an apparel line at big-box store Target—than growing the sport on the slopes. He has positioned himself as bigger than the sport, so when someone of his illustrious status pulls out of a big event, he becomes an enormous target (no pun intended) for the other riders, including some of his own teammates.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports wrote an article Wednesday chronicling White's experience with the other riders, liberally quoting fellow American and halfpipe competitor Danny Davis, the 25-year-old snowboarding star who seems to be no fan of White or his success.

"The thing with Shaun is, he's got a line at Target, which is great to get kids into Shaun White and snowboarding," said Davis. "But it's tough when you don't give too much back to snowboarding."

Yes, that is another American rider stating publicly that White—the man personally responsible for getting millions of kids in this generation into sports like snowboarding and skateboarding—doesn't give enough back to the sport.

This actually happened. At the Olympics.

Davis is part of a snowboarding super group called Frends—cleverly misspelled because "there is no I in Frends"—that tried to bring the sport back to its roots and away from big-ticket competition and corporate interests.

A noble venture, surely, but Davis either fails to acknowledge or chooses to blindly ignore the fact he is at the Olympics. This isn't some halfpipe carved out on the backside of a mountain in Colorado; this is the biggest event in the world.

Davis, like White, is there representing his country. And while there may not be an "i" in Frends, there is one in America.

As if Davis' first quote about White wasn't completely lacking in self-awareness, Davis said, via Passan, "I hate to talk too much [expletive] on him because he's not a bad person. He's just different than me. I truly love snowboarding."

It's all about the shred, bruh. It's not about celebrity and corporate interests. It's about the looooove, man.

I'm paraphrasing, of course. But that's what Davis sounds like, which is great and noble and wonderful for the sport if he wasn't competing at the Olympics.

Davis is at the biggest competition in the history of the world, and he has the temerity to call out another rider on his team for caring too much about success.

The same guy who says he loves snowboarding, by the way, also got drunk and crashed an ATV after qualifying for the 2010 Olympics. He broke his back and missed the competition in Vancouver entirely.

Davis also seems to have the utter lack of self-awareness to rebuke White about a lifestyle that's too reliant on corporate interests—his Target comment is seeping with irony—when he is sponsored by Mountain Dew, Dragon Alliance, Martin Guitars and Burton, the biggest brand name in the history of snowboarding.

Sorry, Danny, but it's hard to chide a guy for being a sellout when your career is being funded by corporate interests too. Even if some of Davis' brand affiliations aren't quite as "big business" as White's, they both ride Burton boards and they both have eyewear deals—though one might surmise White's deal with Oakley is a tad higher-profile.

And, golly, just go to Target's website to see all of the awesome Mountain Dew products they sell.

If Davis wins Olympic gold and Mountain Dew puts his face on one of their cans, there is a 100 percent chance they will end up in the biggest of big-box stores, bruh.

I'm sure all the snowboarding diehards will read Davis' comments in a different light than the general American public. To most of us, White is an American legend and the only snowboarder of this generation we really know. As aloof and detached as he may be from the rest of the shredders on the slopes, he's the guy who ostensibly introduced the rest of us to the sport.

He's the guy who lives in the media spotlight when the rest of the riders slide through in relative anonymity.

Whether Davis and the other riders have remained obscure and unknown by choice or simply by nature of the popularity of their sport is not the point. The point is they are competing together at the Olympics. It's disingenuous to suggest some riders are there for the love of the sport while others are there for personal gain.

They give out precious medals to the winners. It's all about personal gain.

This would be like a punk band back in the day complaining that Green Day sold out to a major label…before playing in a battle of the bands at the Grammys.

Snowboarders can suggest their sport be about the artistry and style and the shredding all they want, but they are in the Olympics now. This is where world-class athletes in dozens of sports go to compete—to win—at the highest level. If winning matters for one sport, it has to matter for all of them. That's the entire concept of the Olympic Games.

Even if achieving Olympic glory is the antithesis of what snowboarding is supposed to be all about, here they are, the best riders in the world, trying to one-up each other for communal adulation and international acclaim.

Earning a spot on the Olympic team makes you a star. Winning a gold medal makes you a legend and gets your clothing line inside all the big-box stores.

That may not be the reason most of the other riders are in Sochi, but that will be the end result nonetheless.

The snowboarding bro code might have to wait a few weeks. There is history on the line at Sochi, for whoever wins.