2/13/2006: Dude!
"Got my slash on, some spray."
Shaun White had a bad first run on the half-pipe and things weren't looking good for the snowboard favorite, but he turned it around in a big way and finished in first place, just like he usually does. Italy loves Socal's Il Pomodoro Volante but after today's performance, and Shaun's delightfully down to earth joy at realizing he's won an Olympic gold medal, the rest of the world is going to love him too.
Just 19 years old, Shaun's been skateboarding & snowboarding since he was 6. He turned pro at 13 and is already a millionaire - definitely making his parents glad they built all those ramps and hauled their little red-haired kid around to competitions and back & forth to the mountains.
Standing on the podium he was genuinely awed and touched, and you could tell it surprised him. "I saw the video footage of the Salt Lake Games and saw people crying, and I didn't want to cry. Then my family came up out of nowhere, and everybody was just crying their eyes out.. I've never felt this way in any other big competition. I wasn't going to cry. It was just tears. It wasn't my fault."
Yea, it was your fault Shaun - and we love you for it.
Catch this guy in an interview if you can: he's the only athlete - and definitely the only gold medalist - who doesn't sound like a pro interview. He sounds like what he is: a 19-year-old kid who's loving life and is making one hell of a ride for himself. The fact that he's the best in the world at what he does doesn't seem to faze him at all.
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Shaun's refreshingly genuine and extremely likeable. He told Bob Costas that he's not overly thrilled with his Italian "Flying Tomato" nick, but he doesn't mind it much either. Costas seemed a bit unnerved by him: maybe it was his unslick and laid-back attitude or maybe it was his sheer genuineness.. maybe it was just his glowing youth. The only thing Costas could grab on to was the fact that White had said he'd like to meet figure skater Sasha Cohen and that he "hopes she digs medals" (I'm sure she does). It was great to see a teenager get the best of a well-seasoned professional interviewer simply by being uniquely fresh and unpretentious.
