Shaun White’s Perfect 100: The Run That Rewrote Snowboarding

There have been very few perfect one hundred runs on snowboard halfpipe because the snow is unpredictable and the challenges to get a perfect one hundred are the same to get a ten gymnastics. It's similar judging, and that's why many have not done it. But one has done it more than once. That is Sewn White. But his second time doing it was to punch his ticket to the Olympics in twenty eighteen. After missing out on the podium completely at the two thousand and fourteen Olympics, he was able to come back from this and a devastating injury the year before to now punch his ticket to the twenty eighteen Winter Olympics, ending one of the greatest snowboarding comeback stories we've heard. Join us today as we hear about his as we hear about his rise, fall and his comeback again today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to the Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide because I can snowboard down a hill without falling down. Take that Sewn White. So. Sean was born a California kid in San Diego and was diagnosed with a heart defect when he was born at the age of six, months he had open heart surgery and then doctors gave him actually slim odds to even survive. This was amazing for me to hear as my son also had open heart surgery at ten months old, and it's amazing to see someone come back from this knowing what he actually went through. And I'm also amazed his parents let him get into extreme sports. It's a scary moment. And by the age of seven though, he was already going crazy on skateboards, surfboards and snowboards. He won his first X Game gold at the age of sixteen in two thousand and three. He would go on in two thousand and six to win his first golden medal in the snowboarding halfpipe and do the same four years later. He got the nickname Flying Tomato due to his red hair that was flowing as he was running both doing snowboarding, and he was also having success skateboarding as well at the X Games, and in twenty twelve he landed his very first perfect one hundred, giving him the gold and cementing his status as one of the greatest snowboarders of all time. So by the time the Sochi Olympics came around in twenty fourteen, everyone just assumed he would go on to win, but unfortunately that's not what happened. He finished fourth and was unable to even medal at the Olympics, a huge devastating thing. As he spread himself too thin. He was obviously getting more sponsors, had more commitments. Also entered another event in the slalom, and he just was not able to keep up and missed out on his opportunity. Just shows you how good you have to be to actually win a medal. And at that point he was so devastated he actually tired from the Olympics, he said, but he gained new motivation in twenty and seventeen at the X Games in Aspen. He was trying to three peat gold there and he was trying to land a double cork twelve sixty. I'm not going to pretend to know what these names are called, but I think they're very catchy names, so I'll tell them anyway, and he caught big air. Was going forty miles an hour, but unfortunately missed the edge and hit his face at the top of the half pipe. There's pools of blood. He needed sixty two stitches. He had an audible factor and an elacerated liver. Everyone just thought, Okay, he's going to retire after this. This is a retirement type injury. And he was pretty much hidden for eight months rehabbing, building himself back up, and he decided he wanted to make a comeback, and the Olympic Trials were coming up. And at the Olympic Trials they only send four people for a specific event, so you have to be the top four in the qualifiers, and everyone's excited to see him and see him back in extra and to see what he can actually do. So at the US Grand Prix where they have all the finals for the US Winter Olympics, it's cold, it's negative five, and now Sewn White is up. The way it works is you get multiple runs in your best score, it gets you your place. So if you score a ninety the first time in a ninety five, they'll take the ninety five and everyone has to beat that ninety five. So really it's a King of the Mountain type of thing. So Seawn's previous runs for short, about ninety three is what he got on his previous runs, not bad runs, but not enough to make the team. So he needed a near perfect run fans are all excited. It's his last run, and he drops in, heading down the mountain into a half pipe. He goes to his first jump, and I'm gonna describe these the best I can to make sense. He did a double cork ten forty Japan. It's four and a half rotations, a double cork inverted axle, launching about twelve feet above the half pipe. I know it's technical, it's a really cool. His next one, he does a two sixty double cork chain, which is an indie grab, grabbing behind on the back side of the snowboard and doing three and a half spins. His third is a front side twelve sixty double cork, which is similar to what he did on his first trick, just the other way. Then he goes a backside two sixty the other the opposite way into a cab ten eighty, which is one and a half spins while basically doing kind of a flip like thing. He lands all of these perfectly, just about as perfectly as you can run. No falter, no fall, no slip, no over rotation. The run looks flawless, and there's five judges and he gets one hundred, one hundred one hundred, one hundred and a ninety nine. What they do is they average out these Even though that ninety nine is there, they still count as a perfect one hundred because it rounds up. It's an ecstatic moment. He gets to go back to the Olympics. The crowd erupts their excited for him. They know he missed out on the previous Olympics and he was coming back from injury. Not many have seen him run. So after this, he is part of the US team going to the twenty eighteen US Olympics and he's focusing on just the halfpipe, and at the Olympics he puts up a ninety eight point five, a great score, and he goes last out of everyone in the field and wins gold. And he actually does go back to the two thousand and twenty two Olympics, but finishes fourth, missing on his fourth gold. But that's five Olympics. That's impressive for anybody to go to because it's a twenty year span. After this Olympics, he would shortly retire and lean into his lifestyle. Ran White Space, selling snowboards, outerwear, streetwear, and he does a lot of success and by twenty twenty five, he starts building a snow league to kind of allow competition in the snowboarding realm a little different than it is normally, and although its success is to be determined, it's a nice breath of fresh tick that he can give back to the Olympics, that he can get back to his community that did so well for him, and it just goes to show you the determination that some athletes have just to never give up on their dreams and their goals and the sports they love. I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please check us out on social media. I started to do these short videos about random people that have sports records that will probably be either future episodes or have been episodes. You can check those out in the links below on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, fun little videos about a minute long. Hope you check them out and enjoy them, and we'll see you on the next one.