The slopestyle kicks off the Sochi games tonight without arguably snowboarding’s biggest start as Team USA’s Shaun White announced that he would not compete in the inaugural event.
White opted not to compete in the event to instead focus on the halfpipe however you cannot help but think that his pull out had to do with the asinine course conditions that’s becoming a calling card for the Sochi games. Norway’s Torstein Horgmo, who was thought to be a medal hopeful broke his collar bone which forced him out of the event Monday while Finnish rider Marika Enne had to be helped off the course Tuesday after suffering a concussion.
But even before these injuries, the course conditions have been a topic for conversation leading into Sochi Yahoo! Sports reports:
”It looks pretty sketchy, the rails are sticky,” Roope Tonteri, the 2013 world champion in men’s slopestyle, was quoted as saying. ”I think they wanted to make big kickers, and it’s not really good for riders, and it’s not really safe. I just don’t want to get injured. It’s not a really fun course to ride.”
Sebastien Toutant of Canada told the Olympic News Service, ”It’s like jumping out of a building.”
Seamus O’Connor, a U.S.-born 16-year-old rider who is competing for Ireland in the snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle, told the Irish media that the course was ”pretty dangerous” and urged the athletes to seek changes.
”They overbuilt the jumps because they were anticipating that the snow would melt. At the moment, the riders are not happy,” O’Connor was quoted as saying.
White also basically mentioned that dealing with the bad course conditions wasn’t a reason to risk the rest of his Olympics:
“With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on,” White said. (Yahoo! Sports)
White announcement though didn’t come without some criticism. Team Canada’s Sebastien Toutan and Maxence Parrot both took to Twitter on Wednesday to mock White’s decision:
“Shaun knows he won’t be able to win the slopes, that’s why he pulled out. He’s scared!” tweeted Mr. Parrot.
“Mr. White … It’s easy to find excuses to pull out of a contest when you think you can’t win,” Mr. Toutant tweeted.
The tweets were eventually deleted (wimp) as Parrot offered an apology:
“I’m sorry if I [offended] anybody. I just meant that it’s not as fun to compete at the Olympics when the riders under lights aren’t there,” he said on Twitter.
h/t: Yahoo! Sports, Deadspin, The Globe and Mail