The Winter Olympics pick up with one of the biggest events on Tuesday in the men's snowboard halfpipe competition and Shaun White remains the favorite after having the top score in qualifying and the finals for the gold medal will be this afternoon US time and comes from Rosa Khutor Extreme Park and will be streaming live from the NBC Olympics website.
The Winter games have been off to a rough start, but the United State has dominated so far in snowboarding, as Sage Kotsenburg won the first gold medal of the games in slopestyle and Jamie Anderson added the women's gold for a sweep. White pulled out of the slopestyle competition after injuring his wrist and while many other athletes did not like that he did that, White needed to heal up for the halfpipe, which is his main event and on top of the wrist, he also had shoulder and ankle injuries to deal with.
Mark McMorris and others have complained about the slopestyle and the halfpipe conditions and McMorris knows what it's like to board in pain, as he broke his ribs at the X Games just two weeks ago and still won a bronze. White has won the halfpipe event two straight times after performing in Vancouver and Turin and now he is looking for a third straight gold and that would be a crowning achievement for him and the United States.
White put all that to bed with a run of 95.75 in qualifying for the best score and things started up at 5 am ET for the boarders and he advanced through and now is in the finals. Many felt the halfpipe was not designed right, like nearly everything at the Sochi games, and many said they could not get the speeds they wanted. White was able to pull off some great tricks and he ended up with a double flip twice on his run and he is still the projected favorite to win gold. American Danny Davis and Gregory Bretz made it through as well along with Swiss star Christian Haller and now the finals are coming up.
White is one of the superstars of the US team and the Olympics and he is one of the main reasons why the event is in the Olympics in the first place. Japanese teenager Ayumu Hirano was tops in the first heat in qualifying and White was best in the second and he had the best run of anyone and now he has to deal with more boarders complaining about how he only likes to win when he competes. Wow, it's the Olympics guys. Many boarders dislike White because they are all about the "boarding, bro" and White really tries to win events and is a bit off on his own, but those dudes need to realize that snowboarding is not an Olympic sport without him. White is the favorite in the event and the halfpipe is expected to be one of the most popular and followed events on NBC for the Olympics.
