Following injuries to several athletes on the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park slopestyle course, top snowboarder Shaun White has announced he will not compete in slopestyle.
Photo : Reuters via the BBC
His focus will solely be to bag a (third) Gold Medal in the halfpipe.
"With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on," White said.
After Norwegian snowboarder Torstein Horgmo broke his collarbone in practice on Monday, the courses three jumps were reduced by a total of six foot. Despite the changes, White was amongst various boarders who took falls, as was Finnish snowboarder Marika Enne who had to be stretchered off after hitting her head in a crash on the final jump.
Canadian athlete Sebastian Toutant reported that the course felt like "jumping out of a building"!