He might not have enjoyed it much, but there’s no doubt that Shaun White not winning anything in Sochi was one of the defining moments of the snowboarding season – if not the decade.
The man who’d dominated competition for so long, and was going into the event as a favourite (in some people’s minds) for two gold medals, came away with nothing. Not silver, not bronze, nothing.
There were of course many contributing factors, not least the fact that Ayumu Hirano and Iouri Podlatchikov simply outclassed him on the night. But watching from the ground, Whitelines Magazine simply concluded that in the end Shaun didn’t want it enough.
Which made it less surprising when he announced his retirement from competitive snowboarding a month or so later…