In some ways, Shaun White’s next trip to the Winter Olympics might be the toughest.
Retired for four years and now trying to shape his sport from outside of the halfpipe he once commanded, White says he fully expects his upcoming trip to Italy — the country where he won the first of his three gold medals — to be an emotional ride, maybe with some unexpected turns.
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FILE - United States' Shaun White poses in the halfpipe course after the men's halfpipe finals at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
FILE - USA's gold medalist Shaun White reacts during the men's halfpipe medal ceremony at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - United States Shaun White reacts after seeing his score on the first run of the Men's Halfpipe Snowboard competition at the Turin 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Bardonecchia, Italy Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006. White's 46.8 held up to give him the gold medal. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
FILE - Shaun White, of the United States, celebrates his gold medal win in snowboard halfpipe at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
“I think my big goal is to get Snoop (Dogg) on a snowboard,” he said, in a nod both to the appearances he could be making with the rapper-turned-Olympics aficionado on NBC telecasts, and the new world he’s entering now that his days of competitive riding are over.
In an interview with The Associated Press, White discussed the leadership role he's taken in action sports through his year-old Snow League halfpipe tour, how life feels being single again and his thoughts about being a spectator at the Olympics for the first time since 2002.
“I’m going to try to hold it together, but yeah, it will be an emotional day,” he said of the men's halfpipe final, scheduled for Feb. 13.
During his heyday, White was the first rider who made no apologies for aggressively trying to win in a sport that felt more concerned with being laid-back. In much the way he reconfigured that part of snowboarding’s narrative over his 20-plus years in the halfpipe, he wants to leverage his influence in retirement by stamping a new blueprint on its future.
His new league is reimagining what a halfpipe contest can be. Instead of the traditional way of judges evaluating runs and letting the highest score win, it introduced an elimination bracket in which judges pick winners of best-of-three, one-on-one showdowns. Riders have to drop into the pipe from opposite sides on their first two runs — harder than it sounds, even for the best.
White recruited reigning Olympic champion Ayumu Hirano and also got Olympic gold medalist Eileen Gu to headline the freeskiing part of the program, which debuted last month on the same halfpipe in China where Gu starred and White bid a tearful farewell to the Olympics four years ago.
Maybe most importantly, White secured the funding to bankroll consistently good prize purses — never a given in snowboarding and nothing to take for granted, considering the way Olympic champion Michael Johnson’s attempt to start a multimillion-dollar track league imploded over the summer.
Linda Henry of the Fenway Sports Group and 359 Capital, a big investor in sports start-ups, are among those who bought into The Snow League's latest investment round of around $15 million.
“I think that speaks volumes, because it’s not just me digging into my pockets,” White said.
White was only 19 with a bright shock of red hair — “The Flying Tomato” — when he attacked the Olympic halfpipe in Bardonecchia, the Italian winter hamlet located across the Alps from this year’s locale in Livigno.
Shortly after the win at the 2006 Turin Games, White found himself on the cover of “Rolling Stone,” shirtless with an American flag draped around his shoulders. It was the best sign yet that White and his action-sports buddies had officially been welcomed into the mainstream.
Now, he is known as an Olympic champion as much as a snowboarder. At next month's games, he'll be a VIP but not a competitor. He'll be the best-known rider on the mountain, but won't snap into a snowboard.
“I feel like I’ll be there in a special way," he said. “And I’m hoping that the feeling is a great one and a positive one and something I’ll want to return to and do again and again over the years."
A lot of what goes down on the halfpipe in Italy — including triple-cork jumps, his trademark and still very relevant Double McTwist 1260 and other tricks nobody much thought of until White did — will be the product of the decades-long pursuit other riders in this high-risk, high-reward sport embarked upon to catch its biggest star.
“Pretty inspiring,” White said of hearing Hirano tell him that he and his brothers used to run home from school in Japan to watch his snowboarding videos.
Much as he loves what he’s done for the pro riders already out there, White says a recent exchange with a couple of young snowboarders at a camp he co-owns in Oregon brought home the role he can play in this evolving game.
“They said ‘We’re going to be in your Snow League someday,’” White said. “And I said ‘Yeah. You probably will.’ And that’s what we want. We want someone young and excited about the sport and seeing their future competing in the league and hopefully competing at the Olympics someday.”
No stranger to the spotlight, White has seen different phases of his private life play out in public for decades.
His much-dissected breakup with actress Nina Dobrev, which became public in September, was no different.
“It was a huge change in my life,” he said in his first public comments about the broken engagement. “It’s almost six years with somebody. I wish her the best. It’s one of those things where you’re planning on forever with somebody and everything needs to fit right.”
He said people see news of the breakup on Instagram and go "'well, why?' And they try to come up with their own reasons, none of which have been true.”
He didn’t get into the “Why” of it.
“But I’ve just been working on myself, working on my business, working on my companies and trying to figure out, what does this next chapter of my life look like?” he said.
White told of recently dropping back into the halfpipe for the first time in a few years at the end of a commercial shoot with snowboarders Danny Kass and Maddie Mastro. The muscle memory was still there.
“Fourth run, I threw a front-double-10, and nailed it,” he said of a trick that will be in play at the Olympics next month. “It was something that was like, ‘What would a few more runs look like if I kept going?’”
But, he says, he’ll leave the comebacks to Lindsey Vonn, who, at 41, is two years older than White. He says it wasn’t the physical part that led him to hanging it up after his emotional farewell at the Beijing Games four years ago.
But the travel, the loneliness and the single-minded nature of his pursuit made the idea of mentally amping up for another run feel close to impossible.
“I'm trying to focus on not looking back at this pasture, but let's look forward to this new frontier," White said. "And it's been great. I feel like I have more love in this sport than I've ever had before.”
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - United States' Shaun White poses in the halfpipe course after the men's halfpipe finals at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
FILE - USA's gold medalist Shaun White reacts during the men's halfpipe medal ceremony at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - United States Shaun White reacts after seeing his score on the first run of the Men's Halfpipe Snowboard competition at the Turin 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Bardonecchia, Italy Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006. White's 46.8 held up to give him the gold medal. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
FILE - Shaun White, of the United States, celebrates his gold medal win in snowboard halfpipe at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
