Shaun White

Shaun Roger White is a determined human being who is very naturally talented at sports such as skateboarding and, of course, snowboarding. He is only 23 and is still arguably one of the greatest snowboarders to ever live. Shaun White is a X Games champion with gold medals in both skateboarding and snowboarding. He also has medals in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics. This combination of different competitions and events has made him one of the most recognizable sports figures of his time. Not to mention his distinguished looks with his long orange hair that makes him some what of a character.

Shaun White was born in San Diego, California in 1986. White experienced two major surgeries to correct a birth defect with his heart before he was a year old. These happened while he was in the womb. These injuries really only effected him in the early years of his life when he played soccer as a kid, but now, as you can see, he is one of the best athletes in the world, and it doesn’t seem to effect him.

His parents supported Shaun’s snowboarding ability and took him to the mountains as much as possible. Shaun entered his first amateur snowboard contest and won when he was only seven years old. This earned him an entry into Nationals, where he placed just outside of the top 10. His mom sent a sporting company a homemade video of Shaun just as the company was making a snowboard line for kids. They were impressed, and offered Shaun a sponsorship deal. The company, which was called Burton, helped him go pro at the age of 13.

This story leads us up to this year were White earned a gold medal in the final halfpipe. This was probably due to the help of a top secret halfpipe he used named “Project X.” White was asked “Knowing you had already won gold, what were you thinking heading into that last run?”

He replied with “The thing that I kept thinking in my mind was like, just don’t fall on this last run down. Because I didn’t want to be the guy that won and then like they are replaying it later on the news. And so I definitely, took my time to go down and celebrated with big airs.”

Shaun plans on continuing to win medals at both the Olympics and the X games, and to eventually have a loving family.