The Animal does it again

I'm sure by now most of you know of Shaun White's epic victory at the Olympic Men's Halfpipe on Wednesday night, but I just wanted to take a minute to post about his awesomeness. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a huge, highschool-girl crush on him (I can't really explain or justify this) and have been following him since his pre-olympian days.

Shaun, who prefers the nickname "Animal" (for his likeness to the Muppet character) over "The Flying Tomato," continues to push the sport forward in unbelievable ways. Scoring a 46.3 on his first run, he sealed the gold medal, but decided to do the victory lap anyway to perform his hyped new move, the Double McTwist 1260 (English translation: 3 1/2 rotations in the air), which he killed. See the sickness below:

Shaun had been working on this trick all year in a private halfpipe built in the Rockies that sponsor Red Bull provided for him.

This great victory for US snowboarding comes after a hard year in which 3 of the sport's top athletes were seriously injured and unable to compete in this year's Olympic games. Danny Davis, Mason Aguirre and Kevin Pearce, also all members of the Burton team with White, were injured. Kevin Pearce, in particular, is a sad case because he suffered a head injury which will likely leave him unable to snowboard again. Pearce was an up-and-comer who was projected to be White's biggest competition this Olympics.

Mandy
Creative Director
J. LaMore