Shaun White - Shedding Snow For Skate this Summer

July 21 2007 / Los Angeles, CA

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It's hard to escape Shaun White these days. While it's been more than a year since he won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Torino for the halfpipe in snowboarding, he has been everywhere on TV thanks to an HP ad last year and two recent American Express commercials, one of which shows him hopping around the globe, hitting the slopes in various countries. He was even on the ESPY's TV broadcast on ESPN last Sunday, sharing the stage with Carmen Electra (he was also a featured athlete in ESPN's much-derided "Who's Now?" contest -- where he lost out to Miami Heat player Dwayne Wade).

And while also this exposure is good, what it doesn't really show is that there is a whole other side to Shaun White. In addition to being considered the the most dominant snowboarder in the world, he's also an incredibly talented skateboarder.

Photo Galleries   Check out some galleries of Shaun in action on his deck at previous competitions... AST Dew Tour: Baltimore Skate Vert Finals > Skate Vert Finals - 2006 Dew Tour - Denver > X Games Skate Vert and Best Trick Highlights > Poll

This isn't exactly news -- after all, White has been to two X Games in a row (winning one silver medal) and has won three different stops in the AST Dew Tour (one in 2005, one in '06 and the first one of 2007 last month in Baltimore). But White's own focus has been split, with him spending most of his year on the slopes, and he has yet to really fully commit to a season so skateboarding.

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This year that may change -- he's not leaving snowboarding, he does seem poised to pursue skateboarding with a renewed vigor -- eager to prove that he can rule the halfpipe in both sports. The dominant win in Baltimore last month at the opening stop of the AST Dew Tour was a good start, though he has been inconsistent to say the least. In 2005, he captured first in Louisville's Panasonic Open followed by third in Denver's Right Guard Open, but he declined to appear after that, primarily to focus on the upcoming Olympics. in 2006, with the Olympics behind him, he started by missing the finals entirely in Lousiville, then captured the title in Denver, before finishing sixth in the Vans Invitational in Portland. Then, like 2006, he declined to come to any further tour stops.

The inconsistency carried over to the X Games, where White tried in vain through the entire best trick competition to land the first-ever 1080 is competition. He's known for his graceful 1080s in snowboarding, there is no one who makes more sense than White to land it in skateboarding, but after nearly two-dozen attempts, he was brusied and battered and unsuccessful. .

But they say that failure can build character -- it's just that Shaun White hasn't had too much failure to deal with in his career.

His story is the stuff of legend. Even though he was born with a congenital heart defect and had two cardiac surgeries before the age of 5, he started skateboarding and snowboarding by the age of six -- Burton caught wind and he was soon sponsored (check out the clip we have of him as a kid talking about snowboarding). and his career was well underway on the slopes. But as for skateboarding, he first met Tony Hawk while snoaboarding but the vert legend mentored him at the Encinitas YMCA Skate Park in Southern California, close to both of their homes.

And while it's easy to make comparisons to Hawk, White has a long way to go to catch up to the Birdman, who is the most-recognized name in all of action sports. Hawk may not have captured Olympic gold (he never had the chance), but he's done pretty well with his empire of skate games, his TV appearances and his foundation that helps bring skateboarding to underserved areas. White does have the nickname (be it "The Flying Tomato" --- his Olympic monkier -- or "The Animal" -- a name he apparently came up with earlier this year at the US Open of Snowboarding), but that's about it. He has a snowboarding video game in production with Ubisoft, but at only 20-years-old (he'll be 21 in September), he has plenty of time to build up his empire.

Shaun White - AMEX Commercial   Shaun White jumps around the globe thanks to his Amex card in this commercial.

So how is 2007 shaping up? Pretty well so far. The Panasonic Open win was obviously important to him, as evidenced by his emotional reaction afterward.

"I messed up in places, but I didn't let myself fall," he said of his first run of the event, which would prove to be the winning run. "I'm overwhelmed. To come off the snow and come in here and do well... it's just crazy"

He has reason to be excited. His winning score of 94.25 was the highest-recorded score of any Dew Tour stop in Skate Vert -- and that's including the prelims. True, one of his biggest competitors, Bucky Lasek (the overal Dew Cup champion in both '05 and '06), was skating injured and still manged fourth, but skateboarding is still an individual sport, and if someone performs like he did, it's hard to lose.

A win or high placement in Cleveland's Right Guard Open may keep his focus sharp going into the X Games, where you can expect him to use some of his time to try and land the 1080 again.

But the real test will come in September, when the Toyota Challenge lights up in Salt Lake City, UT. If he makes the trip, it will be he first time he has competed in the event, and it will send a signal to the industry and fellow pros: I'm here, I'm real. Get used to it.