Tough to stick this landing
from Lena Zawaideh, the drummer in White’s band, Bad Things, is that White sent her “sexually explicit and graphic images.”
White admitted sending the texts but rejected the lawsuit’s legitimacy and seemed eager to take on Zawaideh before the settlement was struck.
“Honestly, I’m here to talk about the Olympics, not gossip,” White told reporters after his victory. “I am who I am, and I’m proud of who I am, and my friends love me and vouch for me and I think that stands on its own.”
Calling sexual harassment allegations “gossip” doesn’t fly in 2018, but it’s too soon to know whether that does lasting damage to the image as an Olympics legend presented to millions in prime time.
As for the other kind of damage — physical — Team Japan said after the competition Totsuka was in pain but his injuries were not as serious as they might have looked on TV.
The 16-year-old flew higher than he apparently could handle, his pelvis landing hard on the rim of the pipe, a fall of perhaps 10 to 15 feet followed by an additional 22 feet down to the bottom of the pipe.
The crowd on hand — and at home — watched in stunned silence as emergency workers tended to him.
The teen’s fall recalled a much-seen video clip of White’s own bloody accident in New Zealand while training four months ago. While it’s difficult to measure both the physical and psychological damage, there is one metric for his injuries: White required 62 stitches.
That offered a stark contrast to the high-flying stunts White made seem at least possible if not at all easy in picking up his 2018 halfpipe gold medal — after a disappointing turn four years ago in Sochi — to go with the ones he earned in 2010 and ’06.
White’s 97.75 on his last run — which even viewers who wouldn’t know a Double McTwist from a Grand Big Mac could marvel at — vaulted him past Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, 19, whose 95.25 performance had edged him ahead of White’s initial run of 94.25.
“(It’s) the return of the king in the men’s halfpipe,” NBC announcer Todd Harris said as White’s winning marks were revealed and White reveled. “White is the new gold! For the third time in his career, Shaun White is draped in the stars and stripes as Olympic champion.”
If Totsuka makes it back to another Olympics, his own fall will be juxtaposed with his hoped-for rise.
The image of White that NBC left us was that of a king regaining his throne, and right or wrong, the simplest narratives tend to be the easiest to recall and embrace.