Who is Shaun White? USA’s athlete has made history at the Winter Olympics
The American snowboarder creates history in Pyeongchang as he becomes the first athlete in snowboarding to win three Olympic gold medals
SNOWBOARDER Shaun White has powered his way into the history books at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. The 31-year-old became the first athlete in his event to win three Olympic gold medals.
What sport does he compete in?
Shaun competes in snowboarding, his main event is the men's halfpipe, which has been staged at every Winter Olympic Games since Nagano 1998.
The halfpipe event is a semi-circular ditch with a purpose-built ramp made up of snow. Each side of the semi-circle has walls that range between eight and 23 feet.
The competitors snowboard their way from one end to the other while performing a vast array of tricks, which are performed while in mid-air.
The event includes both a qualification round and a final round, the top 12 from qualifying go through to the final.
From there, each participant has three runs, the largest scorer out of 100 is declared the winner. The scores are judged by six judges, their job is to rank the run on a scale from one to 100.
The highest and lowest scores are taken away and the four remaining scores are divided into an average that results in the final score.
Judges look at specific factors to determine how they rate the athlete's run, such as the execution and variety of the tricks, the height and the combinations of tricks.
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How did he make history in PyeongChang?
Shaun made history in Wednesday's halfpipe event by achieving three Olympic titles, the first snowboarder to reach such a feat. The American first competed at the Winter Olympics in 2006.
In qualification, his first run delivered a low score and nearly put him out of the competition, but a superb second run saw him top the leaderboard.
He carried the performance into the final, with his first run good enough to pip fellow countryman Danny Kass to his first gold medal.
Returning four years later in Vancouver, Shaun stormed to back-to-back Olympic titles with two flawless runs.
Despite his first run already being good enough for gold, he recorded an even higher total to enlargen his margin of victory.
Following a disappointing 2014 games, when he failed to even finish in the medal positions, Shaun was determined to reclaim the Olympic title in PyeongChang.
After topping the standings in qualifying, he began the final brightly, with a score of 94.25 on his first run.
However, his score was overhauled by Japanese snowboarder - and Silver medal winner in Sochi - Ayumu Hirano on the second run, meaning Shaun would need to deliver an almost perfect final run.
And that's exactly what he did. A score of 97.75 was enough to crown him as the sport's first three-time Olympic champion.
What else is he famous for away from snowboarding?
As well as snowboarding, Shaun happens to be a gold medallist in skateboarding.
He was mentored by none other than skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, who helped Shaun develop his skateboarding skills to able to turn professional at the age of 17.
He first competed in skateboarding's biggest competition the X Games in 2005, winning silver in the vert.
Two years later, he bettered the result to claim gold and would repeat the feat in 2011.
Before the Winter Olympics, whilst in training in New Zealand, he crashed into the edge of the superpipe with the injury resulting in 62 stitches.
Away from sport, White has appeared in the film Friends with Benefits and in an episode of American Dad!
White is also a guitarist for the electronic rock band Bad Things.