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Champion chap |
An Olympic gold medal doesn’t come with an instruction manual, a tube of metal polish or even a box. Shaun White, nineteen-year-old snowboarder champion, earned his golden medallion with a bravura performance on an Italian halfpipe. Now he’s trying to figure out: What do you do with the damn thing?
… he’s seen snowboarding evolve from outlaw sport to extreme-athletics juggernaut. Not long ago, it seemed like an awkward, pandering idea for the Olympics to have snowboarders at all. Now snowboard events are a highlight of the schedule.
Snowboarding, once a good way to get ejected from ski resorts, has gone mainstream. In no small part, that’s because of White’s shaggy charm and the amazing feats of twisting airborne ballet he can perform with a plank of wood strapped to his feet. White is a master of the 1080 …