Yesterday, it started with a jammed wrist. During a training run on Sochi's slopestyle course--a sport new to the Games this year--two-time Olympic gold medal snowboarder Shaun White fell and injured himself. Today, he withdrew from the competition slated to start tomorrow, telling the AP that the course was "intimidating."
That's a lot coming from one of the most renowned snowboarders in the world--an X-Games record holder for both gold medals and most overall medals, and a 10-time ESPY Award winner.
But he's right. It is intimidating.
The 635-meter course in Sochi features two back-to-back terrain parks containing different obstacles and three jumps ranging from 80- to 120-feet wide, says Melissa Larsen, general editor in snowboarding at Xgames.com. The sport is a combination of tricks in a terrain park-- like rails and quarterpipes--and big jumps while bombing downhill. For the gold, athletes have to land jumps like a triple cork--which can involve flipping three times through while doing turns in the air.
Watch Canadian gold medal favorite Marc McMorris do one here:
This week, Torstein Horgrmo--a favorite from Norway--broke his collarbone while practicing, and a Finish boarder was taken off the mountain after suffering a concussion.
Other top American riders have spoken out about the course:
"When we get to a course, nothing's perfect," American snowboarder Chas Guldemond told reporters. "It's roughed in. We test the course. We come in and tweak it. We have rider meetings. We give builders feedback and make tweaks to the course to make it safer and more usable for the riders."
Jamie Anderson--the favorite American on the women's side--said this: "The course is a little intense," she told reporters. "Everyone's making the best of it. I'm having a questionable time getting used to it. But I'm just being slow, patient, taking them one jump at a time. At the end of the day, we're just snowboarding."
But other athletes--namely two Canadian stars, Max Parrot and Sebastien Toutant--have bashed White for calling it quits via Twitter. Earlier today, Toutant wrote, "Mr. White... It's easy to find excuses to pull out of a contest when you think you can't win..." (He has since deleted the tweet.)
That might be the case. White isn't a favorite in slopestyle. White himself told The New York Times just that.
White's main event is the halfpipe, which begins February 11th. And with a first place victory in that discipline, he would became the first American athlete with three Olympic gold medals in a single event. He's the heavy favorite. And now, he can focus solely on his goal of triple golds.
Watch Shaun White compete in the men's halfpipe event on February 11th.
Additional reporting by Cristina Goyanes.
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