Shaun White Gets Back on His Board

The redheaded gold medalist is coming off the snowboarding mountain for the X Games

Injuries and the Olympics put Shaun White's skateboarding career on hold for nearly two years and made it seem as though snowboarding was his lone pursuit.
     
White will finally have a chance to let his skateboard side shine again in a pair of events Friday at the X Games. He may be a long shot to win gold in skateboard vert, with 30-year-old Canadian Pierre-Luc Gagnon the undisputed favorite as he looks to win his third straight X Games gold.

White, though, is drawing more buzz for his entry in Skateboard Vert Best Trick, where observers are hoping he'll try the 1080, the three-full-spin trick that has evaded skaters for more than a decade after White's mentor, Tony Hawk, made the 900 the new standard in 1999.

The Carlsbad native has won back-to-back golds in the X Games in the past -- but in snowboarding. White did medal in the summer X Games in 2003, though -- the first person to medal in both the winter and summer X Games.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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