A perfect 100 for Shaun White in Winter X victory
ASPEN – Only one trick was thought to be gnarly enough to top Shaun White, and Iouri Podladtchikov didn’t have the guts to throw it. Turns out, it wouldn’t have mattered at all.
The “Flying Tomato” overcame an injured left ankle Sunday for the first perfect score in Winter X Games snowboard superpipe history, displaying his usual blend of style, height and technicality to win his 17th medal on Buttermilk Mountain, including his 12th gold.
A two-time Olympic gold medalist, White, 25, of Carlsbad, Calif., prevailed for a record-tying fifth straight year in the superpipe, his heavily iced ankle giving him no issues after he hurt it Thursday, pulled out of Friday’s slopestyle and skipped Saturday’s practice. His total of 100 – out of 100 – surpassed his own best of 97.67, in 2003, made possible by a victory lap after Podladtchikov, of Switzerland, was a point back, at 93, on his third ride.
White marked a 94 on his opening run; crashed on a second run that left him with a black eye and a bloodied chin; then soared above 22-foot walls with two double cork 1,080s, a double McTwist 1,260 and a first-of-its-kind frontside double cork 1,260. He reached 18 feet in amplitude on his winning trip – far higher than Podladtchikov, who brought three straight double corks but didn’t attempt the switch backside 1,260 he had done only once.
Before his final run, White said his coach, Bud Keene, told him, “They’re going to give you a 100 if you make it.” In a black bandana, a black leather jacket and skin-tight pants that resembled a “mixture of cheetah and zebra,” White noted, “Everything felt perfect. I was landing the double (1,080s) at the top, and the Cab double came through perfect. And I don’t know if I’ve ever landed my double (McTwist 1,260) as clean as I have.”
A runner-up to White for the second time, Podladtchikov countered White with his own double McTwist 1,260, however, he decided against the switch backside 1,260 because of a “really bad morning” in a qualifying session in which White triumphed with an 88.66 and 2010 Olympic bronze medalist Scotty Lago didn’t make the eight-person cutoff, in 15th place. “That hit wasn’t nice to me,” Podladtchikov said. “It kept landing flat, and the switch airs didn’t work out the way they should have. I just didn’t have enough juice.”
White said his night “wasn’t complete until I landed that run. I put (the frontside double cork 1,260) out there on the second run, and it put my face into that icy wall, and I was so upset from that. … It was one of those things where if I didn’t do it now, I would forever kind of have this weird mindset that this trick was dangerous and scary. I didn’t want it to like manifest in my mind. I had already won … and I knew I had some more to do still.”
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