Shaun White

Shaun White's quest for two golds in Sochi ended before it could even begin, as the decorated snowboarder announced Wednesday that he was withdrawing from the slopestyle competition.

White, who is still going for his third straight Olympic gold in the halfpipe, cited concerns over the safety of the course and a desire to be healthy for halfpipe. One of his rivals, however, said the snowboarding legend was merely afraid of losing. 

It's a big loss for the event, since White is one of the most popular athletes in the Games, and he had trained incredibly hard to become the only medal contender in both slopestyle and halfpipe.

This is the first year that slopestyle—a downhill run with obstacles and jumps—has been part of the Olympics. When he was younger, the redhead from San Diego dominated slopestyle in the X Games competition, but in 2009, he stopped competing in it to focus on the halfpipe for the Olympics.

Excited about the prospect of winning two medals in one Games, White came back to slopestyle when he found out that it was going to be an event in Sochi. However, he had a hard time catching up with all the advancements that took place while he was gone, particularly the triple corks.

He worked hard to catch up with the competition and blew away the field at the final U.S. slopestyle qualifier to make the Olympic team. But, in the end, it just became too much.

Just 24 hours before the slopestyle qualification rounds were set to begin, White shared the news of his withdraw with an exclusive announcement to NBC's Today show:

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 a part of.  

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 wasn't the only one who had legitimate concerns about the safety of the slopestyle course. On Monday in Sochi, Norwegian Torstein Horgmo, a medal favorite in slopestyle, fell and injured himself on a practice run and had to withdraw from the Games. Female snowboarder Marika Enne of Finland fell on the course Tuesday, got a concussion and had to be taken off on a stretcher.

Injuries are an inevitable part of an extreme sport like snowboarding, but the steep course in Sochi seemed to be exacerbating the concerns.

White himself jammed his wrist Monday, adding another tally on the long list of nagging injuries he's experienced this season. He called the course "intimidating" and hoped that the officials would be able to make it more "friendly" before the competition began. But in the end, he just never seemed to find his comfort level on the course. 

There were scheduling issues as well. The medal rounds for slopestyle coincide with the first day of halfpipe practice, so White was likely going to have to miss a crucial day getting prepared on the halfpipe if he went through with the slopestyle.

These logical—albeit last minute—reasons didn't keep X Games champion Max Parrot from taking shots at the legend, though. In a now-deleted tweet, saved by Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch, Parrot said White withdrew because he knew he couldn't win.

It's not a surprise that White's competitors are speaking out against him. That's happened before, with Parrot and fellow Canadian Mark McMorris taking most of the shots. McMorris has said in interviews before that White is "lame" and a bad person to be the face of the extreme sport.

Parrot later tweeted a pseudo-apology, seemingly saying that slopestyle wouldn't be the same without White's star power.

McMorris and Parrot will now be co-favorites of the slopestyle event with White on the sidelines. For the Americans, Chas Guldemond, Sage Kotsenburg and Ryan Stassel will compete—there will be nobody replacing White, since snowboarding doesn't allow alternates. 

Despite what his competitors say, White's decision was ultimately more about fear of injury than fear of failure, though it would be hard to blame him if it was a bit of both. But like any great athlete, he had to make the decision that was best for his career.

White is no longer chasing two gold medals in Sochi—now, he's merely chasing history.

Shaun White doesn’t have “hobbies” as much as he has a list of things he will eventually dominate.

This list, however, may be becoming too long for his own good. 

According to Liz Clarke and Cindy Boren of The Washington Post, the 27-year-old snowboarder announced on NBC that he has decided to drop out of the slopestyle competition to better prepare himself for the halfpipe. 

White’s departure comes as a surprise to many but fits within the snowboarder’s competitive plan of attack. As he told Rolling Stone’s Dan Hyman in a 2013 interview, he prefers to tackle one thing at a time—music notwithstanding.

You may not know this about the two-time Olympic gold medalist, but in addition to his skateboarding and snowboarding endeavors, White has begun touring America in a synth-rock band.

White’s group, Bad Things, has played at a number of major music festivals, including Lollapalooza in Chicago. He understands that fans’ knee-jerk reaction is to label the group a “hobby band,” per Hyman's interview, but White and his fellow band members insist they’re dedicated to the craft.

“I drop everything for these guys,” White told Hyman. “[Photo] shoots, practice, anything I need to do. Because it’s a very serious thing for us.”

White began playing guitar after winning a snowboarding competition as a teenager. The grand prize was a yellow Fender Stratocaster—a showpiece trophy, but an operational guitar that kicked off his addiction to playing music.

Here’s “Anybody,” a song off Bad Things’ self-titled debut album.

Warning: Video contains NSFW language.

To be clear, White isn’t singing. He plays guitar while lead singer Davis LeDuke carries the majority of vocal duties.

LeDuke says he was uncertain about joining what appeared to be a lark venture by a famous snowboarder.

“People are like ‘Oh, [Shaun]’s just a snowboarder. It’s a hobby band,” LeDuke told Hyman. That isn’t the case, however. 

“Not only does Shaun have musical input, he also lights that fire under our [expletive],” LeDuke said.

White maintains that his focus for music is wholehearted, and that he commits to it like he would a sport.

“I stop snowboarding and I completely dive into skating. I forget everything about snowboarding ... and I focus completely on skateboarding,” White said. “And that’s how its been for music.”

With this in mind, White’s recent decision to forgo slopestyle at the Sochi Olympics makes sense. Couple that attitude with a recent wrist injury and the allegedly rough conditions of the Sochi course, and there’s plenty of reasons for White to stick with his time-honored tradition of dominating one thing at a time. 

Look for Sean to use his singular focus and come back with a medal in the halfpipe.

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After taking gold in the halfpipe snowboarding event in each of the past two Olympics, American star Shaun White was in line to add some additional hardware to his trophy case with a medal in the new slopestyle event in Sochi.

Unfortunately for snowboarding fans, however, White has decided to withdraw from slopestyle. 

According to Nick Zaccardi of NBCOlympics.com, White dropped out of slopestyle in order to solidify his chances of taking gold once again in halfpipe, although it wasn't an easy conclusion for him to reach.

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.

The 27-year-old White is one of the most decorated snowboarders in the history of the sport. In addition to two Olympic gold medals in halfpipe, he has 13 Winter X Games gold medals to his credit. Five of those golds came in slopestyle, but he has placed far more emphasis on halfpipe in recent years.

White did take bronze in slopestyle at the 2014 Snowboard World Cup, so he would have been in contention for a medal in Sochi, although he was far from a lock.

White's withdrawal from slopestyle in Sochi comes on the heels of suffering a jammed wrist in a recent training session. According to the Associated Press, the slopestyle course gave White some issues.

"A little intimidating," White said. "It's been a challenge."

White isn't the only snowboarder who has had issues with the course in Sochi. He admitted that watching crash after crash made it difficult to prepare properly.

It's frustrating to see it. It puts a damper on the whole mood, and it's kind of like you're getting ready to do a big trick and you see something like that. Intimidating. Unfortunate. I'm hoping the builders can make some changes and the course has a little more of a friendly vibe. But I can't change the course. Just doing the best I can.

Although White called himself "healthy" prior to withdrawing from slopestyle, per Zaccardi, the risk of injury in that competition ultimately influenced his decision, according to Kelly Whiteside of USA Today.

White didn't cite a specific incident that made him particularly wary of slopestyle, but perhaps the plight of Norway's Torstein Horgmo played a role. Horgmo broke his collarbone during a slopestyle training session, according to the Associated Press, forcing the medal contender to pull out of the Winter Olympics.

Fellow professional snowboarder Sebastian Toutant quickly reacted to the news on Twitter:

There is no question that White is a competitor who would love to sweep the snowboarding events in Sochi, but the comfort level simply isn't present in slopestyle. Perhaps entering the event was a bit ambitious in the first place due to the fact that it has taken a backseat to halfpipe in his routine over the past several years, but it's tough to blame White for wanting to give it a try.

With an opportunity to become the first male American athlete to win Winter Olympic gold in the same event three consecutive times, White has clearly chosen to focus on making history in the halfpipe. That contest will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 11.

While the slopestyle event will lose some of its shine without White involved, The Flying Tomato will still have a huge role in Sochi as he looks to continue his halfpipe dominance.

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Shaun White has long been known as the greatest snowboarder on the planet, and the living legend knows he must bring his A-game in the men's halfpipe during the 2014 Olympic Games to ensure he wins his third gold medal in a row in the premier snowboarding discipline at Sochi, Russia.

There's a whole new generation of young stars rising to knock White off his perch as the top superpipe rider in the world. 

And White, at the age of 27, isn't getting any younger.

Competition among the top international snowboarders has continued to rise in intensity since White utilized his Double McTwist 1260 (Tomahawk) to claim gold in Vancouver at the 2010 Winter Games. 

For instance, Iouri Podladtchikov, who's also known by the moniker "I-Pod," has come up with a trick so crazy, so extreme, that White himself had to take notice and see if he could replicate it, as reported by Pat Graham of the Associated press, via ABC News:

It's a double-cork 1440—four full twists packed inside of two flips.

That's a half-twist more than what Shaun White did at the last Olympics, when he won gold for the second straight time. It's the newest, toughest thing happening on a halfpipe. So extreme, in fact, that when White saw I-Pod land it, he abandoned what he was doing to try to copy it.

Podladtchikov knows he won't win a gold medal simply for being a trendsetter. But, he says, it's a good way to roll into the Olympics—a pretty nice opening move in the seemingly impossible mission to unseat White in Sochi.

White knows he must continue pushing the boundaries of his own physical limits to stay at the top of his sport. 

This process has been broken down into video form in a recent documentary titled Russia Calling. The film covers his trials and tribulations, and it's a stark reminder that everything excellent we see in the final product comes at a high cost to the athletes involved.

Time and again, White takes brutal tumbles on hard-packed snow as he attempts to perfect difficult new tricks or polish up ones he's used in the past. Clearly, halfpipe snowboarding isn't for everyone, but White still has the passion to continue enduring the abuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT6JKjuA-gM

“A lot of the footage you’re seeing is me trying to break down a barrier in my own head and my mindset to get this done,” White says in an interview with the AP, via Eddie Pells of The Washington Times. “It doesn’t work that easily sometimes. This is the real story of what’s going on and what happens to athletes.”

When the action commences on the halfpipe Feb. 11, White will be the favorite to three-peat. He's the most technically sound rider in the world, and he's always pushing himself to go bigger and land tougher jumps. 

That said, it's clear he'll need to show something new in order to ensure he wins his third consecutive gold medal in the high-profile event. In addition to I-Pod and his double-cork 1440, Danny Davis, Greg Bretz and Taylor Gold, among others, are breathing down his neck to become the next Olympic champion.

It's going to take a special run by the world's best pipe rider for White to earn the three-peat, but we couldn't ask for it to go down any other way. 

Follow me on Twitter: @JesseReed78.

Snowboarding star Shaun White has gone back and forth about his intentions to compete in the Winter X Games taking place from Jan. 23-26. According to SportsCenter, he has now decided that he will not participate in the annual event:

White originally stated he would not compete in the X Games to focus on the Winter Olympics in Sochi that start on Feb. 7. He explained, via Alyssa Roenigk of ESPN in a report from Jan. 17:

So far, the plan is still not to attend X. Especially considering how much work this has been to qualify for the Olympics. It's that time of, what do I really want to work on before the Olympics and you've only got one week to really crank it out.

However, he then changed his mind and made the following statement, per ESPN on Monday, Jan. 20:

It's a tough balance. I really want to get a lot of practice in before the Olympics but I am also much more motivated to give my best run in a competition and I'm excited to go out and do that at X Games.

As of Wednesday, Jan. 22, White has once again decided not to compete in the late-January competition. ESPN.com's Colin Bane provides White's explanation:

"I've been competing in the X Games since I was 13 years old, they are a huge part of why I am where I am and they are vital to the sport. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the mountain and looked over the schedule, I knew I wasn't going to be able to complete the kind of training I know I need in order to prepare for Sochi," White said Wednesday after morning practice on the slopestyle course at Buttermilk Mountain. "It's an incredibly tough decision for me and it's not something I take lightly, especially as ESPN has always been a great supporter, but I have to make sure I'm prepared for the Olympics."

The 27-year-old athlete has already won Olympic gold medals in 2006 and 2010 in the half-pipe event. He will now look to win two more golds after qualifying in slopestyle, an event new to the Olympics this year, and half-pipe.

Of course, he also has plenty of history at the Winter X Games. He is the most decorated competitor at this competition, winning eight gold medals in superpipe and five in slopestyle.

His massive talent and experience will make him a favorite to win a gold medal in both events he's participating in at the Olympics.   

The risk of injury and possible fatigue might have been enough to convince White to avoid the X Games this time around. Hopefully for his sake, the decision will help him prepare for the Olympics.

As one of the most recognizable competitors from the United States at Sochi, he will certainly have a lot of people on his side.  

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One of the biggest stages for winter athletics in extreme sports is about to once again kick off on Wednesday with the X-Games officially starting in Aspen.

With 16 hours of coverage on either ESPN or ABC and an additional 10 hours scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN3, there will be plenty of high-flying, death-defying events for extreme sports lovers to enjoy over the next five days.

A full slate of events in skiing, snowboarding and snowmobile is already set, with athletes like Shaun White and Levi LaVallee looking to take center stage once again.

For those planning on taking in every second of the action, it won't be easy. Before all of the action starts, here is a full schedule of the events and information for each event.

Wednesday, Jan. 22

Men's Ski SuperPipe Elimination (8:30-10 p.m. on ESPN3)

Thursday, Jan. 23

Men's Snowboard SlopeStyle Elimination (2-3:30 p.m. on ESPN3)

Men's Snowboard SuperPipe Elimination (7:30-9 p.m. on ESPN3)

Men's Snowboard SuperPipe Elimination (Highlights) and Snowmobile Freestyle Final (9-11 p.m. on ESPN)

Friday, Jan. 24

Men's & Women's Snowboarder X Final and Men's Ski SlopeStyle Elimination (12:30-4 p.m. on ESPN3)

Women's Ski SuperPipe Final (7:30-8:30 p.m. on ESPN3)

America's Navy Snowboard Big Air Final and Men's Ski SuperPipe Final (9 p.m.-12 a.m. on ESPN3)

America's Navy Snowboard Big Air Final and Men's Ski SuperPipe Final (10:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. on ESPN)

Saturday, Jan. 25

Men's Snowboard SlopeStyle Final and Women's Snowboard Slopestyle Final (2-4 p.m. on ESPN)

Women's Snowboard SlopeStyle Final and Snowmobile Long Jump Final (4-6 p.m. on ABC)

Women's Snowboard SuperPipe Final (8:30-9 p.m. on ESPN3)

Women's Snowboard SuperPipe Final and GoPro Ski Big Air Final (9-11 p.m. on ESPN)

Sunday, Jan. 26

Men's Ski Slopestyle Final, Snowmobile SnoCross Adaptive Final, Women's SkiSlopeStyle Final, and Monster Energy Snowmobile SnoCross Final (2-6 p.m. on ESPN)

Men's Snowboard SuperPipe Final (9-11 p.m. on ESPN)

Schedule courtesy of xgames.com.

Skiing Events

The most parity in the X-Games appears to be in the skiing events. With several athletes on the men's and women's side that could take home gold medals, each event will be tough to predict in the skiing categories.

Canadian ski half-pipe coach Trennon Paynter spoke about the excitement of having a deep field and what it could mean heading into the 2014 Winter Olympics with Devon O'Neil of xgames.com:

I think it's great for the Olympics that there are a lot of people out there with the capability to podium. It's not like eight years ago when you knew it was going to be Tanner [Hall] or Simon [Dumont]. Now you've got a whole pool of people, and every event you're like, who's it going to be?

On the men's side, McRae Williams and Nick Goepper traded off gold medals last year in the Men's Ski Slopestyle events, with Goepper coming out on top in Aspen. As for the Men's Ski SuperPipe event, 18-year-old Torin Yater-Wallace is looking to earn his fourth straight medal after winning a silver and gold last year and a bronze in 2012 in the event.

As for the women's side, Maddie Bowman will be looking to return to the top of the Women's Ski SuperPipe podium after winning the event in Aspen and losing to Marie Martinod in Tignes. In the Women's Ski Slopestyle event, Kaya Turski and Tiril Sjastad Christiansen will once again do battle after trading off gold and silver medals last year.

Snowmobile Events

It doesn't exactly bring the same type of excitement that Moto-X does for the Summer X-Games, but the snowmobile events always bring some of the biggest highlights 

LaVallee, one of the most polarizing figures in the sport, will once again take the stage looking to add to his medal collection. The 31-year-old returned to the Winter X-Games last season to take home the Snowmobile Freestyle gold medal.

With seven medals at the X-Games in his career, LaVallee has a lot of competition in the field. With Joe Parsons, Heath Frisby and Chris Burandt are all looking to take the top spot in the long jump and with the freestyle competition still around there will be a huge field looking to knock LaVallee off the top spot.

Snowboarding Events

It's impossible to talk about snowboarding without mentioning White's name. What Tony Hawk did for skateboarding during his career is mirrored only by what White has done for the extreme snowboarding scene.

But with the Winter Olympics coming up in February and crashing late last week, it appeared White might not compete in the Winter X-Games. On Tuesday, White officially announced that he would compete in the SuperPipe and Slopestyle competitions, according to SportsCenter's Twitter account:

White won't be alone in the two events. With Sebastien Toutant winning the gold in the Slopestyle event in Tignes and Ayumu Hirano looking to dethrone White in the SuperPipe event, it will be interesting to see if the "Flying Tomato" can continue his dominance.

As for the women, Kelly Clark and Elena Hight will once again do battle for the SuperPipe competition. With Clark dominating the event recently, winning gold in the last four events. Meanwhile, Hight has finished with silver in the last three Winter X-Games and is looking to take the top spot from Clark.

In the Slopestyle competition, Jamie Anderson won the gold in Aspen last year but was defeated by Silje Norendal in Tignes and forced to take home silver. With three gold medals between them in the last two years, look for Anderson and Norendal to once again battle it out for the Slopestyle throne.

Updates from Wednesday, Jan. 22

Shaun White has reportedly decided not to compete in the 2014 X Games, despite previous reports. SportsCenter reports that White will be pulling out of the games in order to focus his attention on the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi:

THIS JUST IN: Shaun White pulls out of X Games Aspen in order to prepare for Winter Olympics.

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 22, 2014

---Original Text---

Shaun White has finally made up his mind and decided to participate in the 2014 Winter X Games.

According to the staff of XGames.com, the superstar snowboarder told organizers Tuesday, Jan. 21, that he would compete in both the superpipe and slopestyle events.

White’s decision will certainly please his legion of fans, many of whom were unsure if the 27-year-old was actually going to take his talents to Aspen this year. White will now participate in two events in the X Games, which run from Jan. 23 through Jan. 26, before turning his focus to the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Per XGames.com, White indicated last week that he wasn’t going to compete again until Sochi:

So far, the plan is still not to attend X. Especially considering how much work this has been to qualify for the Olympics. It's that time of, what do I really want to work on before the Olympics and you've only got one week to really crank it out.

The California native has traditionally dominated in the Winter X Games and hasn’t missed a single year since making his debut as a 13-year-old in 2000. He has been immensely successful in recent years, having won eight superpipe and five slopestyle gold medals at the annual showcase.

"The Flying Tomato" also has three silvers (two in superpipe and one in slopestyle) and two bronze medals (both from slopestyle) in his vast collection of X Games hardware.

White has big plans after Aspen, as he will be participating in the first-ever slopestyle competition in the upcoming Olympics, as well as the half-pipe event that he won gold medals in at Vancouver in 2010 and Turin in 2006.

It will be interesting to see which event White will choose to uncork some of the new moves he has been hinting at for both the half-pipe and slopestyle runs.

According to XGames.com, White gave fans a glimpse of his frontside double cork 1440 in a video released in December, while also being excited about pulling off an insane cab double 1440 (now known as the "YOLO flip") to win at Mammoth.

"That's the first time I've done [the cab double 1440] in a contest, let alone doing a double cork into it," White said. "I've been waiting to break it out."

Make sure you tune in to watch White at both the X Games and 2014 Winter Olympics over the next few weeks, as he is almost guaranteed to pull out thrilling new moves.

As the Games in Sochi approach, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of two-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White. But you might notice that the snowboarding superstar, now 27, looks a little bit different these days.

With his shockingly short haircut, polished presence and streamlined sponsorship portfolio, White is putting a mature and business-like foot forward. While the image is in direct contrast to the unbuttoned, crazy-haired, partier persona of Olympics past, it’s a natural transition. After all, White has come a long way since he was a 19-year-old phenom who was taking the 2006 Games by storm.

He is now a pop-culture celebrity and a sports icon. He has his own line at Target and an upcoming NBC prime-time special, and he has dominated the Summer and Winter X Games. Though he is never satisfied, as is the case with most legendary athletes, he’s accomplished more in his lifetime already than most could even dream of.

But now, on the backbone of all that success, he’s trying to set himself up as a business mogul and a rock star, in addition to a two-time Olympic champion. This year in Sochi, White is going for two gold medals: in his main event, half-pipe, and a new event added to these Games, slopestyle.

Those goals would seem far-fetched for most people, but for White, they’re simply the natural progression of a journey into notoriety that started when he was just a child.

White was born into a middle-class family in San Diego. He was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of Fallot, which led him to have two open-heart operations before he was one year old. But once he was fully healthy, he began following his older brother Jesse around wherever he went—which was first to the skate park and then to the slopes.

White was a prodigy from the start, and his supportive family encouraged his talent, taking him around to competitions in their van and parking at the bottom of resort mountains so that he could go up and practice first thing in the morning.

The persistence paid off.

By the time he was seven, he had his first sponsor, Burton. By the time he was nine, pro skateboarder Tony Hawk had already decided to be his mentor. He turned pro as a snowboarder at the age of 13 and as a skateboarder when he was 17. 

The medals and prestige quickly piled up for White. The friends, however, did not. Extreme sports are very buddy-buddy, as athletes are often bonded together by brotherhood (or sisterhood) of insanity tied in with the sport they devote their lives to.

But White has never quite fit into the clique. In fact, he’s often eschewed it altogether.

As reported by Elizabeth Weil for The New York Times Magazine earlier this month, he blames it on jealousy, while others feel he’s giving his competitors the cold shoulder:

The story that White tells himself is that he never clicked with the other snowboarders because nobody likes the kid who always wins. Many riders see it differently. They resented White for snubbing them, not even pretending they were all friends, an attitude that is central to snowboarding’s self-concept. ‘He didn’t hang out with them,’ [Dave Finger, Digital Media Director of the X Games] says. ‘He didn’t show any of that camaraderie, stoking each other out, knuckle-bumping and high-fiving. He’d just show up and then win and then leave.’

This persona as an outsider in the snowboarding world has continued to follow him throughout his career, and while it was an issue when he was a teenager who was beating everyone in sight, it’s only gotten worse as his mainstream popularity has skyrocketed.

In 2010, he received a lot of criticism from his peers when his sponsor Red Bull built him a private half-pipe in his backyard and he refused to share it with his teammates. He was determined to hold on tightly to whatever edge it gave him, and this only further alienated him from his competitors.

Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris talked to The Globe and Mail about the snowboarding community’s growing frustration with White in 2011: “He could definitely represent snowboarding better. Just be way more cool. He’s so lame. He’s on his own page, he doesn’t hang out with anybody but himself.”

While most would think that White’s overwhelming popularity would be good for snowboarding, it turns out that most in that community don’t want the face of their sport to be a buttoned-down loner who has his own line of clothing at Target. After all, extreme sports are supposed to be about stepping outside of the box, not owning the box and everything inside of it, which White seems to do.

White understands all of this, but it hasn’t stopped him from moving forward with his vision of what his career should be.

Since we last saw him in Vancouver, he has made a few very significant changes. He has streamlined his business ventures into one corporation, Shaun White Enterprises. He now has the final say on everything from publicity photos to skateboard-deck designs to fashion. And his mother is no longer in charge like she was at the 2010 Olympics—he has hired Keith Yokomoto, a COO with extensive experience, to run things.

Then, of course, there was the haircut heard around the world. White claims that he didn’t put any thought into the move, posting a video on YouTube of the entire so-called-spontaneous experience, but it’s impossible not to see the symbolic nature of transitioning from a wild-haired extreme sports star to a sleek businessman in the lead-up to his third Olympic Games.

For someone as calculated as White is, it’s hard to imagine that he didn't plan it.

As for friends, well, he’s working on that too. As if he didn’t have enough to juggle with his skateboarding and snowboarding careers, White now has a band, “Bad Things,” that is signed by Warner Brothers and releasing an album this month. However, he is not the frontman, as many have assumed. With this venture, he likes to think of himself as just one of the guys.

When talking to Rembert Browne of Grantland last year after his band opened at Lollapalooza, White revealed that he travels with the members in a 15-passenger van and stays with them at cheap motels when they’re on the road. He told Browne he decided to do things that way because, “I really felt like it was important, because it makes the band a tighter group.”

His bandmates told Browne that White's celebrity was far from a distraction for the group. "But people occasionally think, ‘Oh it’s Shaun, it’s his project, this is some sort of premeditated thing,’ and it’s not like that," lead singer Davis LeDuke said. "He just loves music, it’s another one of his passions like snowboarding is, like skateboarding is.”

As White has grown up, he's become more comfortable with his life as a snowboarding outsider and has felt secure in exploring his passions for music and business. And, as Weil notes, he's also making a conscious effort to be nicer to people and to do things—like the band—that aren't 100 percent about him. Of course, that's difficult to do when he's constantly surrounded by people that he's paying. 

But throughout this process, there have been some hiccups along the way, most notably his arrest for vandalism and public intoxication back in the fall of 2012. With his mugshot plastered all over the Internet, White issued a public statement, apologizing for the "inconvenience it caused my family, friends, business partners, the hotel and their guests."

But between the setbacks and the successes, it’s important to note that White hasn’t lost sight of his Olympic dream. This weekend in the Grand Prix in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., he officially qualified for the Sochi team in both slopestyle and half-pipe.

It wasn’t easy, though. On Thursday during his second slopestyle run, he suffered a bad crash. He sat out the rest of the day, and even missed the qualifying runs on Friday morning. But, in typical Shaun White style, he bounced back effortlessly, taking first place in slopestyle and in half-pipe qualifiers.

He’s now the favorite for a third straight gold medal in Sochi on the half-pipe and is in contention for the top of the slopestyle podium as well. Though he's been busy over the past four years, he's still put in all of the time necessary to perfect his craft. 

Even though White has become a more well-rounded guy in the last few years, winning and greatness are still the biggest parts of his brand. And thanks to his dedication and talent, both of those things should be on abundant display in Sochi.

A scary fall wasn't enough to sidetrack Shaun White from the road to Sochi. 

In his quest to qualify in the snowboarding slopestyle, a new Olympic event, the two-time half-pipe gold medalist crashed on his second run at Mammoth Lakes, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 16, finishing last in the event.    

On the second big jump of the run, White attempted a double flip but came down from upwards of 50 feet right onto his face. He lay motionless for a while, but eventually got up and was tended to by medical staff before walking down the mountain on his own power. 

Here's a look at the scary fall (1:05:26 mark):

White was actually able to start his third run, but he had a shaky landing on his first big jump and pulled off to the side, ending his chances in the third slopestyle qualifier. 

Nevertheless, while his outlook for Sochi was undeniably a little more grim after the fall, White showed zero ill-effects of the crash, bouncing back and winning the fourth qualifier just hours later on Thursday. 

As NBC's Olympics Twitter feed pointed out, the victory assured him a spot in Sochi in the newest snowboarding discipline: 

With just one slopestyle qualifier remaining on Saturday, Chas Guldemond, Ryan Stassel and Sage Kotsenburg will compete to join White as America's representatives.

Here's a look at the standings, courtesy of ESPN.com with an update from NBC Olympic Talk's Nick Zaccardi:

Place	Athlete	Points
1	Shaun White (clinched Olympic berth)	2,000
2	Chas Guldemond	1,800
3	Ryan Stassel	1,600
3	Sage Kotsenburg	1,600

The top three earn automatic Olympic spots. 

Of course, White's work isn't completely done. Over in the half-pipe, where he will look to defend his gold, he sits in seventh place with 800 points and three qualifying events—two on Friday, one on Sunday—remaining. 

Nevertheless, it's clear that Thursday's nasty fall isn't going to affect him, and it would be extremely surprising if the 27-year-old doesn't head to Sochi, where he has a chance at doubling his Olympic medal total, in two events. 

You can't have his lucrative endorsement deals or his talent that has garnered a wealth of accolades and medals, but thanks to a camera affixed to his helmet, you can get a sense of how nauseating it must be for Shaun White to pull off one of his many aerial maneuvers.

USA Today's Roxanna Scott (h/t Sportress of Blogitude) reports on this awesome GoPro video footage as well as the training session it captured.

Via the YouTube description, the video was made back in October as White and his team trained for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. 

When you are a two-time half-pipe Olympic gold medalist, you do everything in your power to stay on top of the sport.

Snow Park Technologies' Frank Wells and coach Bud Keene crafted a perfect half-pipe to carve with new tricks. One maneuver we get to see from just about every angle is the double cork 1440. 

Fortunately, we get to see White fly above the winter wonderland from his very own vantage point—a wonderful view that will enthrall and quite possibly nauseate. 

The footage is enough to keep us entertained for a brief moment as we wait patiently for opening ceremonies. However, the twisting and turning at two minutes, 30 seconds is far more than a visual curio. It's actually vital information forWhite and his team.

The footage that I'm getting on the camera, I can then look at it later as a training tool to look and see what I did wrong in my run, what I can improve on. And then I can adjust there on the spot, on the mountain.

The one thing we have come to expect from White is no less than bigger and badder. Whether it's the Olympics or the Winter X Games, we get used to seeing perfection slide down the hill. 

The not-so-obvious sentiment is behind the hard work is a crack team that is dedicated to building a beautiful "rough draft" of Sochi. From there, the insane, gravity-defying acts are captured and examined almost immediately. 

White has this sport which is infused with so much aesthetic beauty, down to a science, which should lead to more glittering gold in the near future. 

All of this is to say that capturing a day at the office is far more interesting when White is the one doing the recording. 

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