Shaun Roger White (born September 3, 1986 in Carlsbad, California) is an American athlete. He has been a notable competitor in professional snowboarding since he was fourteen years old, but is also known for his skateboarding. White was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect for which he endured two open-heart operations.
White stands 5' 8.5" (1.73 m) tall. He rides regular stance, twelve and negative three degrees on his board. He is known for his shock of red hair, for which he has become known as "The Flying Tomato." Addressing his perception of the nickname, Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "he used to embrace it, even wearing headbands with a flying-tomato logo, but he has grown tired of it."
Shaun spent his formative years riding Snow Summit and Bear Mountain, at Big Bear a small ski resort found in the BALLE San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. Today, his sponsors include Burton Snowboards, as well as Oakley, Birdhouse Skateboards, Park City Resort, Target, Red Bull, Adio, and HP; White also has his own character on the games Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder. White has been a participant in the Winter X Games, where he has medaled every year since 2002. Including all winter X Games competitions through 2008, his medal count stands at 14 (9 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze), including the first four-peat winner by a male athlete in one discipline, the snowboard slopestyle. White's quest for a five-peat Gold in 2007 was spoiled by Andreas Wiig (Gold) and Jussi Oksanen (Silver), with White taking the bronze. At the conclusion of the 2008 Winter X Games, White stands as one of only two athletes who have won a leading seven gold medals in their total Winter X competitive history. He has also won the Air & Style Contest in 2003 and 2004.
White also earned a gold medal in the men's halfpipe while representing the United States at the 2006 Winter Olympics. He scored a 46.8 out of 50 on his first run. The score was not beaten by any other boarder in the first or second run, ensuring him the gold before his final run.
Executing a near-flawless second run, Shaun White captured his third consecutive halfpipe title at the 2008 U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships to go along with his third US Open slopestyle competition . This follows White's dramatic win at the 25th (2007) Burton US Open, where he placed third in slopestlyle and first in the halfpipe. White was defending champion of the Open, as he had overcome several years of injuries and other problems to finally win the event in 2006 for the first time. At the 2007 Open, White was also crowned the first "Male Burton Global Open Champion". His take for the event was $200,000 (Global Open Champ), $20,000 (1st Place Halfpipe), $5,000 (3rd Place Slopestyle), and a new Volvo.
The same season he won almost every contest he entered on the TTR World Snowboard Tour 06/07 earning him the champion title at the US Open in March 2007. In season 08/09 White only had 5 results at the time of the US Open, the tour defining event, and therefore couldn't win the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour Champion title. The trophy was handed out to Kevin Pearce who had only beaten him once at the Burton European Open Halfpipe competition in Laax, Switzerland in January 2008. But by adding a 6th result at another 4 Star TTR event in Switzerland in April, he still moved into the No. 1 position in the snowboard world ranking at the end of the season earning him $50,000.
