Shaun WhiteHis return to the Winter X Games ended before he could take his first competition in almost three years.
According to his social media, White put one of his knees into practice in the week leading up to Sunday night’s snowboard half-pipe event in Aspen, Colo.
“After talking to the medical staff, deciding to push through would only make matters worse,” was posted on White’s Instagram about four hours before the game. “It’s a difficult decision to make, but I just need to give it some time to recover, then I’ll be back soon.”
White (34) last took part in snowboarding at the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang and won his third gold medal. He returned to driving after an aborted attempt to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in skateboarding.
‘“Every time it feels like a new thing,” White, who next year will be older than anyone to take part in an Olympic snowboard half-pipe, said in a video interview with X Games last week. ‘I do not like to turn off the gas. You may not see me, but I’m still doing all the things I need to. ‘
White’s expected return to X Games, his first time at the biggest annual snowboard competition since 2017, is as a showdown with the Australian Scotty James. James has won bronze in PyeongChang and won three of the last four X Games titles.
But Japanese 19-year-old Yuto Totsuka triumphed in Aspen and defeated James for a third consecutive and named him the early 2022 Olympic favorite. Totsuka, the 11th in PyeongChang as the youngest contestant, ranked first on Sunday based on the general impression instead of one of his four runs being scored.
According to commentators, he had some 1440s in one of his runs.
James took second place, followed by another Japanese, Ruka Hirano. Taylor Gold was the best American in fourth place. At least one American man made the half-pipe podium at the first 23 issues of the X Games in the US, but no one has done so in the last two years.
Earlier on the last day of the competition Sunday, snowboarder Jamie Anderson achieved her eighth X Games title, but her first in the air.
Anderson, the two-time Olympic champion and seven-time X-champion in slopestyle, beat a huge airfield that included every medal winner of the last three X-Games, plus every Olympic medalist in 2018, led by Austrian Anna Gasser (which was Sunday seventh).
Anderson (30) is already the only female snowboarder with several Olympic titles. After winning Friday’s slopestyle crown, she said she thought it might be her last competitive season, but now does not know when she will retire.
Anderson is one Winter X Games medalist ashamed of the record 20 achieved by the Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris and two golds are ashamed of the female record held by the American snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis.
American men won snowboard slopestyle (Dusty Henricksen) and ski-slopestyle (Nick Goepper).
Henricksen, a 17-year-old rookie from X Games, became the first American snowboarder to win an X Games Aspen sloping style since White in 2009. Previously, his biggest title was the 2020 Winter Olympics.
He beat a field that included the Olympic champion Rooi Gerard (Sunday seventh). It was missing five-time X Games champion McMorris, who missed X Games for the first time since its 2011 debut due to a positive coronavirus test.
Goepper, an Olympic silver and bronze medalist, achieved his fourth X Games ski slop title title and the first since a 2013-’15 three-turf three-pointer.
What’s next for snowboarders and freeskiers is unclear. The biennial world championships set for China in February have been canceled but may be rescheduled.
The Burton US Open, usually a season-end at the end of February or early March for snowboarders, was also canceled due to the pandemic.
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