Forget about downhill skiers, hockey players and figure skaters. The most famous — and marketable — athlete expected to go for gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler is a snowboarder.
It’s much more likely you know him, and his mop of long, curly red hair, from magazine covers or Hewlett-Packard Co. commercials than for his seemingly impossible 1260s — 31/2 full rotations, picture a spinning top — as he explodes from the steep walls of a snowboard halfpipe at the X Games.
Shaun White, already a star before gold at the Turin Games in 2006 launched him to …Â More info
In 13 years of alpine ski racing, Daron Rahlves found himself foiled by fog, bad snow, equipment failure, ice, sickness, lack of sleep, and any number of other obstacles.
But never, not once, by a cross-body block thrown by a hyped-up Canadian.
Welcome to the world of ski cross, the lone new sport slated for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, which begin a year from Thursday.
Rahlves, 35, America’s most successful male downhill racer, was lining up a last-minute pass at …Â More info
Ski freaks and mountain bikers, Whistler calling. Spring’s coming right around the corner, and if you’re already dreading the depressing approach of wildflowers in bloom and the impending snow melt that mark the end of ski season, do not despair. That behemoth of a mountain, British Columbia’s Whistler Blackcomb Resort, is also a lesser known summer paradise.
Many tourists, ski bums, and bunnies know that the mountain is open for what you may assume to be a watered down source of warm month revenue. Fewer have given it much of a chance to be notably fun in the off season. This means that you’ll have the Vegas of Skiing without the Vegas if you go May through October. You’ll practically have the place to yourself… More info
American superstar snowboarder and defending Olympic gold medallist Shaun White is a confirmed competitor for this weekend’s halfpipe event at Cypress Mountain.
A two-sport athlete, White was the first person to compete at both the Winter and Summer X Games in two different sports and is an icon for legions of snowboarders.
White was born with a heart defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot and needed two surgeries to help fix it. But a heart problem couldn’t slow him down…. More info