Early Olympians reportedly competed nude. In that sense, this Terry RichardsonRolling Stone cover of Shaun White rocking out shirtless over his burning board makes some sort of sense.
Shaun White has revolutionized snowboarding, won the big gold in Vancouver and lit his snowboard aflame, Hendrix-style, on the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, joining an elite club of athletes to appear on our cover not once, but twice. . . And as the focused, business savvy White tells it, a lot of his recent success on the half-pipe and off can be attributed to a new addition to his life: “Getting into music has changed my personality and my way of doing things,” he reveals to RS writer Vanessa Grigoriadis. “I”m far more open now.”
Jimi Hendrix would be proud. At least the rest of Shaun is covered up. . . click the link for video.
Shaun White and the Olympic pipe jocks aren’t the only shreds taking the double double. Eric Willett doubles up on his way to stomping a win at the TTR River Jump in Livigno, Italy last weekend. Don’t know that we’ve ever seen anyone land an entire run so solid.
The good news is that the Long Valley caldera, like her big sister Yellowstone in Wyoming, is not getting ready to super-erupt and again cover half of North America in ash. The bad news is that when Long Valley does someday get hot and bothered again, it may prove to be surprisingly bi-polar.
In other words it could blast and ooze, according to Stanford University geologist Gail Mahood. Mahood’s new research on the Mammoth supervolcano has not changed any future activity projections, though. That stat remains at “less than a one percent chance that it’s going to blow in any given year.”
Four snowboarders who got lost while riding at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine on Sunday afternoon were located today after spending a cold night on the mountain, according to an Associated Press story.
A group of three snowboarders, plus a fourth one who was on his own, went out of bounds late Sunday afternoon in an area known as the snowfields, a large section of ungroomed expert terrain on the backside of the mountain. . . The Sugarloaf ski patrol and the Maine Warden Service searched late into the night Sunday, communicating with the lost snowboarders by cell phone and text messages and coming within shouting distance. But the search was hampered by high winds, steep terrain, thick spruce woodlands and the more than 5 feet of snow that had fallen since Wednesday. The temperature fell to 22 degrees.
The search was called off after midnight and the snowboarders were told to “hunker down” for the night. It appears that all four of the snowboarders (Luke Poisson, Cory Koop, Machali Belluscio, and Aaron Nadeau) are all doing fine after their night outdoors. Koop is literally from North Pole, Alaska so he probably slept fine.
Canada’s Jasey Jay Anderson won the men’s snowboard parallel slalom gold medal today (Saturday, February 27, 2010) in a nearly blinding rain storm at Cypress Mountain. Austria’s Benjamin Karl who took silver and France’s Matthieu Bozzetto claimed the bronze.
With this this win Anderson capped off an amazing career as a professional snowboarder. Alpine racers have it tough. Snowboarders don’t like them, major snowboard manufacturers don’t support them, and they have to train harder than most. But anyone who thinks that Alpine racers aren’t snowboarders needs to open their minds a little wider and remember that no matter what you think about them at least they’re not boardercrossers. . .
Medals were awarded today in the Women’s Parallel Giant Slalom. Yes, it is a form of snowboarding where racers see who can get through a course faster than everyone else. Here’s how it stacked up:
1. Nicolien Sauerbreuij, Netherlands Gold
2. Ekaterina Ilyukhina, Russia Silver
3. Marion Kreiner, Austria Bronze
Each year, apparently, BusinessWeek magazine creates a Power 100 list of the most powerful athletes in the world. Being an Olympic year, they’ve also created a sister list of the Most Powerful Olympic Athletes. And Shaun White is featured on both. He’s number four on the Olympic list checked in between a couple hockey players and on the athletes list he is all the way down at 51 between golfer Jim Furyk and New York Mets’ third baseman David Wright.
Why he’s on the list: Having dropped the “Flying Tomato” moniker, White has picked up the ability to carve his place in the national consciousness despite competing in a niche sport.
The only other real notable on the list was Ryan Sheckler who just squeaked in at 100 “now that Tony Hawk is retired.”
Early Olympians reportedly competed nude. In that sense, this Terry Richardson Rolling Stone cover of Shaun White rocking out shirtless over his burning board makes some sort of sense.
