White returns to X Games

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Shaun White has come down from the mountain.

Injuries and the Olympics put his skateboarding career on hold for nearly two years and made it seem as though the snowboarding slopes were the lone pursuit for the Flying Tomato, a man who has always considered himself a two-sport athlete.

White will finally have a chance to let his skateboard side shine again in a pair of events today at the X Games, Skateboard Vert and Skateboard Vert Best Trick.

“Everything’s geared toward skating now,” White said.

The red-maned 23-year-old had what he called his “breakout skateboard season” in 2007, taking his first summer X Games gold in Skateboard Vert and winning at several stops on the action sports Dew Tour. In 2008, White took bronze in Skateboard Vert, and he missed virtually all the major skate events last year.

Many thought White was sitting out 2009 to prepare for the Vancouver Olympics, where he would win gold in snowboard halfpipe.

“The strange part is that a lot of people assume that I took a year off last time around, but I was hurt,” he said.

White wasn’t entirely upset his injury didn’t get much attention, because he’ll quickly concede he didn’t do it in the coolest way — in the one place you’re not supposed to.

“I landed in the foam pit, and it chipped a bone in my ankle,” White said with a laugh, referring to the super-soft landing spot used by action sports athletes to develop new tricks. “Out of all the crazy stuff I did, I got hurt in the foam pit.”

White aggravated the injury in May at another unlikely place, a kids’ skate park in L.A.’s Venice Beach. That’s left him having to cram to prepare for the X Games.

“I just started skating again this month,” White said. “People think it’s just like snowboarding but it’s not. Just today I relearned my final trick.”

Because of the Olympics and his earlier success in snowboarding, skateboarding has always been regarded by fans as his secondary sport. But he insists that skateboarding will remain the yin to his snowboarding yang, and it might as well be because if he chose just one professional sport, the other would be his full-time hobby anyway.

“I’m such a competitive person, I’d be skating just as hard in summer and snowboarding just as hard in winter,” White said.

White may be the biggest star ever in action sports, with the possible exception of his friend and benefactor Tony Hawk, appearing on TV commercials, with a kids clothing line and video games.