Renowned snowboarder and Olympic gold medalist Shaun White has announced his retirement from the sport today (February 5).
Just one day after the 2022 Beijing Olympics kicked off with the Opening Ceremonies, the American athlete revealed during a news conference that this year would be his last as a snowboarder.
“I’ve decided this will be my last Olympics,” White told reporters in a media session. “I’ve given it my all, there have been some ups and downs on the way to get here…I usually take the season off to get excited again, but this will be my last competition.”
Despite not giving an exact reason for his retirement, White’s history with injuries appeared to be the primary benefactor. In 2018, White crashed while training for the Olympics, injuring his face and requiring sixty-two stitches; despite this, he still made the Olympic team and took home the gold medal that year. And this year, he endured a bout with COVID-19 while recovering from an ankle injury he suffered a few months back, which almost derailed his chances of making the Olympic team.
His injuries, combined with his growing age — he’ll be 36 this year — motivated him to make this decision. “I’m sort of pinching myself, with how lucky I am to still be here at this age,” White said.
White, who took home three Olympic gold medals for the half-pipe in the 2006 Turin Games, 2010 Vancouver Games, and 2018 Pyeongchang Games, also holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals by snowboarders, and the most gold medals in the X Games.
He emphasized that snowboarding was becoming harder for him, as he found the moves less easy to perform as the years went on. “They were taking away from days in practice, and I was watching the tricks getting heavier and heavier,” White said.
White painted a serene picture reflecting on the moment the decision to retire hit him. “I was riding down from the halfpipe in Austria, and I got lost, and I had to take this chair back up. And on that chairlift ride, the mountain was closing and I was on my own and I was watching the sun go down, and it hit me: this is it. It was a surreal moment, but very joyous as I watched the sun go down and reflected.”
In an ever-moving world where no soul grows younger, White has realized that younger, stronger athletes are filling the field, leaving those older in the dust. White feels this has happened to him, and following the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, he will finally hang up the snowboard. There is no denying his excellent and renowned career, and we at Celeb Secrets wish him luck at the 2022 Olympics, and all the best during his future endeavors.
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