When Shaun White got off the plane in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, he found the airport familiar, but the landscape was a lot less white than he remembered.
As one of professional snowboarding’s most dominant competitors, White is no stranger to Park City Mountain Resort’s snow-covered park and pipe. But this time White finds himself on the dry land of downtown Salt Lake City competing in the AST Dew Tour vert-skateboarding event.
Coming into the Salt Lake contest, White stood as the undefeated champ of the ramp, taking first place in all three of the previous Dew Tour stops. Determined to finish the five-site tour on top of the point totals, White wasn’t counting on his early success to carry him through. With seasoned veterans such as Bob Burnquist and Bucky Lasek on the roster, White knows he has his work cut out form him.
“These guys are really going to step it up,” White said in regards to the two remaining tour events.
White says taking each contest “as it comes” is key to staying on the forefront of two different sports.
Flying between skateboard competitions in the U.S., and snowboard training and promotional work in Chile and New Zealand is all part of White’s summer routine, but transitioning between the climates and equipment setups is more complicated than jumping on a plane. Photographers get trigger happy as soon as he straps on a snowboard, leaving him no time to get comfortable in the goggles, helmet, and board he ditched for a skateboard months earlier.
Keeping up with the level of his peers in both sports requires White to make the transition between sports in a matter of weeks to compete against guys who never left their respective habitats at all.
“I kill myself just to get back to the level I was at, then I have to push ever harder to get better,” he said.
However, going from one world-class event to the next can be an advantage.
“I’m comfortable really high in the air,” White said, attributing to snowboarding his aptitude for altitude as well as spin tricks.
Going from the powder to the masonite also gives the 21-year-old superstar a chance to clear his head and challenge himself in more than one way.
“(Skating) keeps me from sitting around all summer. I completely forget about snowboarding,” White said.
Being at the top of both skateboarding and snowboarding has always been a dream for White, who started skating in the Encinitas YMCA near his home in Carlsbad, Calif.
His dream was realized this year when he won his first summer X Games gold, adding to his heaping stack of medals, including 7 Winter X Games gold medals and an Olympic gold from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.
As a kid, White followed his older brother into the less structured world of skateboarding. The self-motivated sport came as a relief from hyper-involved parents and demanding soccer coaches. White took up snowboarding on family ski trips around the age of four.
“The only reason snowboarding worked out for me was because the whole family was into it,” White said.
He is quick to give credit to his parents who would drive him for up to seven hours to find snow for the youngster to shred. At 12 he was riding professionally and gaining fame with the nickname “The Flying Tomato” thanks to his long, curly red hair.
Taking his responsibility as a role model for other boarders seriously, White graduated high school even though it meant teaching himself algebra in a hotel room in Japan while other boarders were out partying.
Now all grown up, he has a firm grip on this year’s vert skating Dew Cup championship with more than a 100-point lead on his nearest competitor, even after finishing third this weekend. “I do the whole run,” White said. “I try to do a trick on every wall.”
White says he feels comfortable in the portable vert-ramp, which has been modified in size and features in each of the tour cities, though some of his counterparts complained about the length of the Salt Lake ramp.
“I feel extra pressure on my performance, it fuels me,” White said of competition. “If I know I have fans there, I do better.”
Heading to Orlando next month, White looks to capitalize on his lead, and of course finish the tour with a fourth victory.
“We’re all in it for the long run,” he said.