“There’s a café in town here that does a burger named after me,” said the world’s most famous snowboarder, joking with journalists after today’s halfpipe qualifiers. “I don’t know if you guys have checked it out? It’s pretty good…”
Shaun White, who’d just posted the highest score in qualifying and won the right to drop last in tomorrow’s Olympic halfpipe final, was looking relaxed and confident. Or at least, that’s the impression he was trying to give off. “I get my favourite spot, dropping last. That was big for me, really a good luck spot,” he said. “I wanted it.” Getting it, however hadn’t been totally plain sailing.
“I wanted to show that this is what I’ve been doing my entire life, and I’m here to put it down”.
“Oddly enough I was a little nervous [on my first run],” Shaun explained. “You know there’s such a build up to get to the Olympics and then you’ve still got to qualify for the finals. So I was stoked to put that run down that took the pressure and the edge off.”