Shaun White finally went on record about the rumors that he may try to compete at Tokyo 2020 in skateboarding park. Shaun has been posting pictures and videos of him skating on his socials hinting at a possible bid but things came to a head when he showed up to bowl skating competition in France. Here’s what he had to say to AFP:
“Honestly, I am here to see how things go. I haven’t made a decision either way, I just figured, want to have some fun, skateboard, come to France and then hopefully make a decision come new year if I’m really going to go for it or not.
The Winter Olympics for me just happened so, to finish climbing the mountain and to have a success like that and to have another mountain to climb with skateboarding, it’s a lot. Physically, mentally and all these things so, I think for me to have fun right now and get excited about it, and then set the goal of going to the Olympics is how I’m going to do it.
It’s crazy, snowboarding is I feel like, everything is bigger. The halfpipe walls, look, maybe the highest here is 12, 14 feet maybe, and snowboarding it’s 22 feet tall. So it’s a lot bigger and you are strapped in so there is no running out of something, if you are going to hit a jump, you are going, it’s happening.
But with skateboarding, it’s more technical. You can spin and flip, and the board can spin and flip. So I think there is a lot more involved, and in that sense, it makes it harder to complete a run. You know, there is so much that can go wrong.”
Shaun is going to keep skating and is wait for the dates the four qualifying events for the US team to be announced. We will for sure stay on top of this story and keep you posted with all the latest.
Here is Shaun throwing a styled out kickflip at his first ever bowl skating event in France:
Here’s a straight air with mucho amplitude that you might expect as his first out of snowboard halfpipe:
images from shaunwhite ig