Shaun White finished 13th at the world skateboarding championships park event in Sao Paulo on Saturday. Now, he will decide if that was a strong enough showing to continue his Tokyo Olympic bid.
“This will be the deciding event,” White said after advancing out of qualifying Thursday in a SporTV video interview. “I basically told myself I’d go here and give it everything I have, and then, after this competition, see how I stack up with the other skaters and then make the decision to fully commit to the Olympics.”
He does not stack up high enough right now to make the first U.S. Olympic skateboarding team of no more than three men in park. Three other Americans advanced from the semifinals to Sunday’s eight-man final. The U.S. also had four of the world’s top eight men in the Olympic ranking as of July 22, after two contests. The team won’t be decided until qualifying competitions wrap up next year.
White, a three-time Olympic halfpipe snowboarding champion, said in July 2019 that he would lighten his snowboard schedule as he returns to skateboarding.
White, 33, entered his first skateboard contest in years last September and called his performance “pretty terrible,” but not surprising given it was his first-ever park event.
White earned five X Games skateboard medals between 2005 and 2011, but all of those came in vert, which is not on the Olympic program.
White hasn’t competed in snowboarding since the PyeongChang Olympics, his longest break in that sport.
White has said he would like to go for a fifth Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. He would be 35, older than any previous Olympic snowboarding champion. He’s already the oldest halfpipe medalist.
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