Snowboarding icon White delivers at Breckenridge
By John Meyer, Denver Post
BRECKENRIDGE — Looking down a 602-foot superpipe with walls 22 feet high apparently doesn’t faze Shaun White, but a movie put a good scare into him this month.
The action sports superstar from San Diego came down with a bad head cold two weeks ago on a flight from Beijing to Los Angeles. And the “heavy part” was that he was watching the movie “Contagion” on the plane.
“Oh, my gosh,” White said, “it was rad.”
He’s still bothered by the cold, and he’s been on snow only four days this season, but neither challenge prevented him from winning Saturday’s Dew Tour superpipe competition at Peak 8. White won with a score of 95 points on his first run and crashed hard doing a McTwist 1260 on his second. Louie Vito of Bellefontaine, Ohio, was second with 92.75 on his second run.
White said a case of “dead leg” from a lot of riding compressed into four days caused the crash.
“I didn’t get enough pop on that last hit,” White said. “It just gave out on me.”
Because White represents Vail Resorts and trains at Northstar, company co-president John Garnsey came out to watch. Garnsey is an alpine ski racing guy to the core, but he was blown away by White’s ability to be the best man in the pipe after only four days on snow.
