BEIJING (AP) — Shaun White’s brilliant and transcendent Olympic career is over. It ended with a fall on his final run down the halfpipe, a heartfelt ovation from the crowd and then a tearful farewell to a sport he helped define.
A few mountains away, Mikaela Shiffrin finally made it all the way down the Alpine ski hill, finished ninth in super-G and then expressed relief.
There were no medals Friday for two of the biggest American stars at the Beijing Olympics and different emotions.
Shiffrin could have two more chances to become the first Alpine ski racer from the United States to win three Olympic golds across a career.
White, though, is finished. His fifth and final Olympics ended when he clipped the wall trying to land his second trick of his third run. Knowing it was over, he pulled off his helmet and acknowledged the crowd as he slowly rode the rest of the way down the halfpipe. Trying to win his fourth gold medal, he instead finished fourth.
“I’m not sad,” White said, although he cried a few times, including during an interview with NBC when he struggled to keep his composure.
“I’m proud of what I put down,” White said. “And I can’t help but think if I would have hit the podium in third, I would have wanted second. And if I’d have gotten second, I would’ve wanted first. It’s just the fighter in me, and I’m always hoping for more.”
White came shredding into the Olympics 16 years ago, a teenager from a San Diego suburb nicknamed “The Flying Tomato” because of his shaggy mop of red hair. He won the gold medal at Turin and repeated in 2010 in Vancouver. After finishing fourth in Sochi, he was back on the top of the podium in 2018.
Now 35 and his hair well-coiffed, White had his legacy on display all around him in the Secret Garden Olympic halfpipe.
“I’m sure every single person who competed today looked up to him for a very long time,” said bronze medalist Jan Scherrer of Switzerland. “It’s a very cool moment.”
The gold medalist, 23-year-old Ayuma Hirano of Japan, was one of them. He proved to be a worthy successor to White with an epic final run that included a trend-setting triple-cork, or three head-over-heels spins while twisting above the pipe, for a score of 96.
“I hoped I could send a message to him by showing my ride to him,” said Hirano, who grew up idolizing White.
SHRIFFIN FINISHES
Mikaela Shiffrin made it across the finish line of The Rock course on the Alpine hill for the first time in three races in the Beijing Games. She placed ninth in the super-G, well off the pace set by gold medalist Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland.
“It’s a really big relief to be here now in the finish, having skied a run well,” Shiffrin said. “I wasn’t skiing safe or anything. But I also did get to the finish and that’s really nice for my heart to know that it’s not totally abandoning everything I thought I knew about the sport.”
