Snowboarding

Travis Scott might not be the best on the slope, but the novice snowboarder has a friend who is.

The rap star got some help from Olympian Shaun White this week, and it wasn't long before he was grinding and going airborne down the mountains.

White posted a video showing his protege's progress, with Scott clearly excited after landing the jump (warning: NSFW language):

Travis Scott got snowboarding lessons from X Games legend Shaun White 🔥 *NSFW*

(via @shaunwhite) https://t.co/rL2VXhaH8l

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 31, 2021

Scott said in an Instagram post he was "overly hyped," and he had good reason to be. He only got his snowboard January 1.

Not bad progress for 30 days of work. With White's help, he might even be shredding halfpipes by this time next year.

Alex Pullin, a three-time Winter Olympian and two-time world snowboard champion, died at the age of 32 on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported police said Pullin drowned while spearfishing in his native Australia and was found by a snorkeler.

According to police, Pullin, who was diving on an artificial reef at Palm Beach on Australia's Gold Coast, was unresponsive when taken from the water and received CPR from paramedics. Police said Pullin did not have an oxygen mask and had been freediving when he died.

"Our deepest condolences are with Alex's family, as well as his teammates and support staff," Snow Australia, the country's winter sports body, said. "Alex was a beloved member of the Snow Australia community, and he will be dearly missed."

Pullin represented Australia in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics in the men's boardercross events, finishing in the top 10 in 2018.

He was also his home country's flag-bearer at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and won gold medals at the 2011 La Molina and 2013 Stoneham world championships.

The extreme sports athlete of the generation has been knocked down a peg in the history books.

Snowboarder Mark McMorris earned his 19th career Winter X Games medal Saturday, topping Shaun White's longtime record.

.@markmcmorris makes #XGames history earning his 19th career medal passing Shaun White's longstanding record for most winter medals at X Games. pic.twitter.com/EQxBIMnda2

— X Games (@XGames) March 7, 2020

McMorris, 26, won gold in the men's snowboard big air competition Saturday at the Games in Norway, finishing ahead of Max Parrot and Darcy Sharpe. The Canadian captured a silver medal in the big air event in Aspen in January.

That he's still competing at all is a marvel. McMorris suffered significant injuries after crashing into a tree while snowboarding with his brother and friends near Whistler, British Columbia, in 2017, resulting in fractures to his jaw, pelvis, ribs and left arm as well as a ruptured spleen and collapsed left lung. The recovery required two surgeries.

Less than a year later, McMorris won his second Winter Olympics bronze medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in the men's slopestyle event.

At the X Games, he's totaled nine gold medals, seven silvers and three bronzes—finishing on the podium every year since 2011.

White still holds the career X Games medal record with 23 podium finishes across the Summer and Winter Games.

Chloe Kim won her fifth Winter X Games snowboard superpipe gold medal on Saturday in Aspen, Colorado, thanks to an 84.00 score during her second run:

Chloe Kim went from last place to 1st in the Superpipe with this run 👀 pic.twitter.com/QvmyiUy4m1

— ESPN (@espn) January 27, 2019

Competitors are each given three runs, with the best score standing as the one that counts toward the final results. Queralt Castellet won silver with 80.00 points in her first run, and Cai Xuetong took the bronze with a 72.66 result in her final run.

Kim turns just 19 years old in April, but she looks well on her way toward becoming one of the most decorated winter-sports athletes in recent history, let alone in snowboarding.

That's in part because she's the owner of a lot of "firsts." Per the Olympic Channel, she's the first halfpipe rider to sweep an Olympics gold medal, a Winter X Games gold medal and the U.S. Open.

Charles Lam of NBC News reported Kim was the first person under 16 years of age to win back-to-back golds at the Winter X Games. She is the first woman to hit back-to-back 1080s and land a frontside double cork 1080 in the halfpipe as well.

Kim also became the youngest woman ever to win an Olympic snowboarding medal when she took down the halfpipe event in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Kim has been dominating the snowboarding scene for years, as she won the silver medal in the 2014 Winter X Games at just 13 years of age.

Switzerland's Nevin Galmarini held off South Korea's Lee Sang-Ho for gold in the men's parallel giant slalom snowboarding Saturday afternoon in Pyeongchang, South Korea (Friday night in the United States). 

Galmarini, the silver medalist in 2014, finished 0.43 seconds ahead of the home-crowd favorite as he came away from the 2018 Winter Olympics' final snowboarding event with his second career medal. 

Zan Kosir of Slovenia rounded out the podium as he finished 1.49 seconds clear of France's Sylvain Dufour for bronze.  

A rundown of the day's top finishers can be found below, with complete results for all snowboarders available through the Olympics' official website: 

• Gold: Nevin Galmarini (Switzerland) 
• Silver: Lee Sang-Ho (South Korea)
• Bronze: Zan Kosir (Slovenia)
• 4. Sylvain Dufour (France)

Following Galmarini's victory, Switzerland has now won three of the five gold medals since the Winter Olympics introduced giant slalom snowboarding in 2002. 

On the flip side, Sangho snagged South Korea's first-ever medal in the event with silver after he squeaked past Kosir by the slimmest of margins in the semifinals, as NBC Olympics documented on Twitter: 

SO CLOSE!

South Korea's Lee Sang-Ho advances to the finals in Men's snowboarding parallel giant slalom! #WinterOlympics https://t.co/zs69Ii032t pic.twitter.com/VviNPd9f7d

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 24, 2018

However, Kosir didn't go home empty-handed. 

Already a two-time Olympic medalist thanks to his giant slalom bronze and parallel slalom silver at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, Kosir added to his tally with a smooth run in the small final as he carved up the course at Phoenix Snow Park to further pad an already impressive resume.

Ester Ledecka etched her name into Olympic lore by winning gold in the women's snowboarding parallel giant slalom final Saturday afternoon (Friday ET) at Phoenix Snow Park in Pyeongchang, South Korea. 

Ester Ledecka becomes the first woman to win two #gold medals in two different sports in the same #WinterOlympics!! pic.twitter.com/nXQCo8Vpdg

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 24, 2018

The Czech dynamo is the first athlete in Olympic history to claim skiing and snowboarding golds following her stunning super-G triumph on Day 8 of the 2018 Games. She's also the first woman to medal in two sports at a single Winter Olympics. 

Ester Ledecka does it. Gold in Super-G alpine skiing first, gold in parallel giant slalom snowboarding now. A historic double. Nobody had a better PyeongChang Games than the 22-year-old from the Czech Republic whose racing suit is in superhero motif. If the suit fits.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 24, 2018

Ester Ledecka wins gold in the parallel snowboard, paired with gold in super-G. An all-time accomplishment. She’s Snow Jackson.

— Adam Kilgore (@AdamKilgoreWP) February 24, 2018

Ledecka defeated Germany's Selina Joerg in the gold-medal race, while Ramona Theresia Hofmeister came out on top in the bronze-medal showdown against Alena Zavarzina. 

Here's a rundown of the day's top finishers, with complete results for all participants available through the Olympics' official website:      

• Gold: Ester Ledecka (Czech Republic)
• Silver: Selina Joerg (Germany) 
• Bronze: Ramona Theresia Hofmeister (Germany)
• 4. Alena Zavarzina (Olympic Athletes from Russia)

Here's the full medal count so far:

Ledecka produced one of the most unique and impressive Olympic runs in recent memory, and she capped it off Saturday with a succession of sterling races that proceeded without hiccups as she blew past the field for her second gold medal. 

"I firmly believe she's one of the greatest living athletes," Ledecka's snowboarding coach, Justin Reiter, told the Guardian's Sean Ingle. 

Take it from American skier Lindsey Vonn, and Ledecka's performance could have serious staying power in terms of how it affects future Olympic hopefuls. 

"The millennials are raw and inclusive, and trying other sports is important to them, as it should be," she said, per the New York Times' Karen Crouse. "I think maybe Ester can give them hope that competing and being successful in more than one sport is possible. I think she definitely will have a long-lasting impact."

Elsewhere on the podium, Joerg captured her first Olympic medal after falling one place shy in the Vancouver 2010 Games and finishing 13th four years ago in Sochi, Russia.                 

Germany also came away with bronze and a majority share of the women's giant slalom medals thanks to Theresia Hofmeister's victorious effort versus Zavarzina. 

Lindsey Jacobellis' wait for Olympic gold continues, as Michela Moioli earned the gold medal in the women's snowboard cross at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau and Eva Samkova, the event's 2014 gold medalist, rounded out the podium. Jacobellis finished in fourth place.

Jacobellis was gracious in defeat, according to the Associated Press' Will Graves:

What do you do when you finish a close 4th in your fourth #Olympics .. if you’re @LindsJacobellis you hug gold medalist Michela Moioli pic.twitter.com/9CakYRX631

— Will Graves (@WillGravesAP) February 16, 2018

Jacobellis led for the bulk of the race's first half until Moioli climbed into first place. The 22-year-old Italian never relinquished the lead. Moioli created major separation between herself and the rest of the field. She crossed the finish line 0.33 seconds ahead of Pereira de Sousa Mabileau, who likewise had little trouble locking down the silver medal.

The fight for bronze went down to the wire, as 0.03 seconds separated Samkova and Jacobellis. For The Win showed how slim the margin was:

American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis was *this close* to a bronze medal https://t.co/qEHRn759Y2 pic.twitter.com/OcSQ7QfrsU

— For The Win (@ForTheWin) February 16, 2018

Jacobellis was the only American who moved on to the semifinals. Meghan Tierney and Faye Gulini both reached the quarterfinals, but they finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in the their quarterfinal run, with the top three snowboarders advancing.

The semifinals represented a symbolic hurdle for Jacobellis in that she fell in the semis of both the 2010 and 2014 Olympics and thus had to compete in the small final.

Jacobellis' semifinal run was drama-free, as the six-person field thinned out midway through the race, leaving Jacobellis, Samkova and Alexandra Jekova a clear path to the finish line. SB Nation's Whitney McIntosh noted how nothing could be taken for granted given Jacobellis' Olympic history:

https://twitter.com/WhitneyM02/status/964339985985015808

While bad luck played a big role in Jacobellis' failure to win Olympic gold in her three previous tries, she wasn't good enough in Pyeongchang. She had the fourth-fastest time in qualifying (1:18.05) and was unable to put it all together when the competition got tougher in the semifinals and final.

Compare her results to those of Moioli, who had the second-fastest qualifying time (1:16.97) and went on to win her semifinal heat.

In a previous interview with the Olympics' official website, Jacobellis declined to say whether she'll consider retirement.

"Still just taking one week at a time, one month at a time, just living the dream," she said in January. "I don't like to look too far into the future because you're missing what's going on right now."

Considering she turns 33 in August, the 2018 Winter Olympics likely represented her last chance to capture that elusive gold medal.

Austrian Markus Schairer suffered a fracture of the fifth cervical vertebra after a fall in snowboard cross Thursday at the 2018 Winter Olympics, according to ESPN.com.

The 30-year-old is reportedly in stable condition.

The Austrian Olympic Committee provided an update on Schairer's injury in a statement provided to Bleacher Report (via CNN):

"Snowboard crosser [Schairer] suffered a fracture of the fifth cervical vertebra during his fall in the quarterfinals in Bokwang. The good news: Neurological impairments are not present, consequential damage can currently be ruled out. In addition, the Vorarlberger pulled an elbow injury. The 30-year-old had come to the penultimate jump hard to crash, but could then independently drive to the finish. The return transport to Austria is prepared (with medical assistance), should take place as soon as possible."

Schairer was in his third run in Pyeongchang, South Korea, hoping to earn a spot in the semifinals, but he fell during the event and sustained the serious injury.

He ranked 17th out of 40 qualifiers in the seeding round before taking third out of five in his ⅛ finals. Unfortunately, he couldn't finish the quarterfinal run that also included eventual gold medalist Pierre Vaultier and silver medalist Jarryd Hughes.

The veteran was competing in his third Olympics, though he failed to medal in the 2010 and 2014 Games.

Wipeouts and injuries are not new for snowboard cross. Seven of the 24 quarterfinalists in 2018 didn't finish the race after falling on the course.

Schairer himself has dealt with a torn ligaments in his shoulder, a ruptured ligament in his knee and five broken ribs in the past. Hopefully the latest issue is merely a setback before he makes his return.

Snowboarding took center stage at the 2018 Olympics on Friday with Norway's Marcus Kleveland and Canada's Max Parrot taking the top spot in their respective heats. 

Parrot had the best score in the 35-man field with an 87.36 on his second run. Kleveland came out on top among the snowboarders in the first heat, finishing with an 83.71. 

Carlos Garcia Knight was the big story on Friday, coming in a strong second place in the first heat with an 80.10. New Zealand, Knight's home country, has only won one medal in its history at the Winter Olympics. Annelise Coberger took home silver in the slalom at the 1992 Games in France. 

Norway is the most represented country from the first heat with three finalists, including Kleveland, Mons Roisland (76.50) and Torgeir Bergrem (75.45). Also competing for a medal on Saturday will be Canada's Sebastien Toutant (78.01) and Sweden's Niklas Mattsson (73.53). 

The second heat featured more depth at the top with four snowboarders scoring above 80. Parrot's fellow Canadian Mark McMorris was in second place with a terrific 86.83 mark.

Redmond Gerard from the United States (82.55), Stale Sandbech from Norway (82.13), Tyler Nicholson from Canada (79.21) and Seppe Smits from Belgium (78.36) rounded out the top six qualifiers from the second heat who will be competing in the finals on Saturday. 

Complete results via NBCOlympics.com

After making it through to the finals, Knight didn't even try to hide his excitement about what he has a chance to accomplish:

“It’s hard to find words to describe this feeling. I’ve spent so long thinking about this contest and to finally be here and do do well is unbelievable” - Carlos Garcia Knight

Carlos is through to the finals tomorrow of the #SnowboardSlopestyle #EarnTheFern 🌿 pic.twitter.com/XRkACP7y4k

— The New Zealand Team (@TheNZTeam) February 10, 2018

Just 20 years old, Knight emerged as a star last year at the New Zealand Winter Games when he won a bronze medal. He also became the country's only hope in this event after Tiarn Collins was forced to withdraw after dislocating his shoulder in training on Thursday. 

Belgium is in a similar position as New Zealand as far as medals. Even though the country has five Winter Olympics medals dating back to 1924, it doesn't have any in the past 20 years.

Smits was able to make the final cut in the second heat with the sixth-best score, bringing Belgium one step closer toward ending that drought.

While Knight was a focal point in qualifying, he was looking up at Kleveland in the first heat. The Norway star came to Pyeongchang as a strong medal contender after winning back-to-back slopestyle gold medals at the X Games in 2017 and 2018. 

This is Kleveland's first appearance at the Olympics. He's only 18 years old but hasn't let the stage get too big for him in his initial run. 

Among the non-qualifiers, Team USA's medal chances took a significant hit when Chris Corning finished a disappointing ninth after winning a bronze at the 2017 Snowboarding World Championships. 

Ryan Stassel, the only other American to compete in the first heat, had the lowest score with a 23.50 on his first attempt.

Gerard, who wont turn 18 until June, was able to give the U.S. a representative in the semifinals. The youngster can cap off his meteoric rise with a medal if he can repeat his efforts from qualifying. 

But all eyes will be focused on Parrot, who has been building toward this moment ever since he finished fifth in the slopestyle finals at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. He's primarily focused on big air coming into PyeongChang, winning gold in that event at each of the past three X Games. 

Slopestyle may be a different discipline, but the results have remained the same for Parrot as he chases down his first Olympic medal. 

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's Rachel Axon in 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.