White wins USA’s 100th winter gold
Shaun White stared down the halfpipe before his final Olympic run and had no doubt what would happen next.
“I honestly knew I had it,” White said. “I knew I had to put it down.”
Put it down he did, soaring and spinning Wednesday through a half-dozen near flawless tricks — including back-toback 1440s for the first time in his life — en route to his record third halfpipe gold medal.
White won with a score of 97.75 and wept at the bottom of the halfpipe. It marked White’s return to the top of the sport after a disappointing fourth-place finish at the 2014 Sochi Games.
The snowboarding great received heaps of praise for his gutsy run, but also criticism on social media and questions in a news conference about a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against him in 2016. White dismissed the allegations as “gossip” and declined to address the matter further.
White’s gold was also the 100th overall for the United States in the Winter Olympics — all four American golds this year have been won by snowboarders.
The U.S. might have gotten gold No. 101, but Mikaela Shiffrin’s bid for multiple medals at the Pyeongchang Olympics was delayed once again when the women’s slalom was postponed because of strong winds.