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Snowboarding superstar Shaun White ready to defend Olympics gold

The $8-million man hits the slopes Wednesday as one of the Vancouver Games’ hottest celebrities

Shaggy red hair. Baggy pants. Scrawny chest. T-shirt for every occasion — like, maybe, trolling the mall to spend some of the $8 million (U.S.) that sponsors hurl his way each year for riding a board like no one else.

Say a large “How do, dude!” to Shaun White, a 23-year-old, half-piping, American superstar whose journey from X Games legend to Olympic champion and, hence, mainstream sports hero, makes him one of Vancouver’s hottest celebrities.

White takes his high-flying act to the dewy slopes of Cypress Mountain Wednesday (4:05 p.m. ET, qualification round) where tricks honed on a secret $500,000 training ramp (courtesy of sponsor Red Bull) will be unleashed on the field.

Off the slopes, “The Flying Tomato” (as he’s nicknamed for his famous red ringlets) is in top financial form.

White is one of the highest-earning Olympians in Vancouver. Forbes Magazine estimates that the engaging American makes about $8 million annually from snowboard-maker Burton, Red Bull, his Target clothing line, goggle-maker Oakley, game-maker Ubisoft (3 million copies of Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip have been sold since 2008) and AT&T.

Only Korean figure skater sensation Kim Yu-Na is in White’s league, making about the same amount from a stable of sponsors that include Hyundai, Nike, a bank and Samsung electronics.

But figure skating has been around a long time and is considered a safe investment for prospective sponsors and advertisers. Disciplines such as snowboarding and skateboarding have been an acquired taste for conservative spenders who don’t like or trust the rebel nature of the X Games crowd. That White has transcended the cultish world of X Games to achieve prime-time attention – he was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 2006 — speaks to his skill as an athlete, a personality and a pitchman with great reach.

“I think I’m just starting to scratch the whole surface of what I think is possible,” White told the Denver Post.

“I mean, when I won the Olympics (2006 in Turin) I was 19. It feels weird to say that, like I’m getting old or something. But I won the Olympics and people were like: ‘What do you do now? Is it over?’ I felt like I was just getting started.”

The Californian started his run up to Vancouver with a stunning performance at the January X Games.

The highlight from his third full pipe-winning routine in a row has become one of those YouTube clips you have to see to believe: a double-flipping, 3 ½-spinning “Double McTwist 1260, “that came just an hour after he mistimed a simpler but no less dangerous double-cork jump while warming up, slamming his head into the side of the pipe and knocking his helmet off.

White escaped serious injury (upon watching the replay, he noted that his hair looked pretty good), and later went on David Letterman’s talk show to point out the strawberry badge-of-honour graze on the side of his cheek.

Such a combination of high-flying crowd appeal, high risk, and matter-of-fact cool have made White and the double cork a topic of some discussion this Olympics. White’s U.S. teammate Kevin Pearce, after all, is in a rehab hospital in Colorado after suffering a serious head injury while attempting the complicated double cork, a move White developed last year on his Red Bull practice site in Southwestern Colorado — a hideway reachable by helicopter and dubbed Project X.

source:olympics.thestar.

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