Jimi Hendrix is playing on the stereo, providing the soundtrack to the flurry of activity in a studio space in New York that’s so clean and white it’s like standing in an iPod. Hendrix is occasionally punctuated by the clack of skateboard wheels on concrete. Shaun White glides from a full-length mirror near where racks of clothes have been set up for his perusal, to another corner of the studio where he ollies and kickflips and laughs in front of the camera.

It’s White’s second photo shoot of the day and, as in the first, he’s clashed with the stylist. “I don’t know what my image is, but I know what it’s not,” says White, and brushes aside a lock of the reddish-brown mane that has, as much as anything, contributed to his dual-sport fame. “It’s nice to be able to speak my mind: a lot of people don’t have that.”

The snowboarder and skateboarder’s stratospheric ascent from niche sports star to Olympic gold medallist and mainstream sports hero, is as much the story of an immensely talented and marketing-savvy young man as it is the rise of a multi-billion dollar sports industry. At 22, White has reached David Beckham levels of name recognition. He has two clothing lines, is a national spokesman for Amex and Hewlett Packard in the US and has his own hit video game.

It’s difficult to reconcile this megabrand with the borderline hyperactive young man zipping around the studio, the fading splashes of acne on his face partly covered by a head of hair worn like the 80s rock musicians he idolises. White is affable, and his penchant for ending sentences in a question mark and peppering them with “bro”s and “like”s confirm his southern California roots.

But the nonchalance deceives. A dominant force on the world snowboarding circuit since his late teens, and a rising power on skateboarding’s halfpipe, White’s excellence at board sports stems from a talent recognised early by his family, and honed by his fierce competitive streak.

The family of five would tear down the mountains on California’s Nevada border together, with six-year-old Shaun channelling his hyperactive energy into bombing runs that would make his mother sick with worry. In an effort to slow him down, Kathy made him ride with his weak foot forward. Her concern paid dividends later when White began landing his multi-rotation jumps comfortably, regardless of which foot was leading.

White’s comfort in the air, meanwhile, owes much to the trampoline in the family’s backyard, which White combined with a six-foot skateboard ramp. “I’d run and jump a gainer off of the vert ramp, and then I’d land on my stomach on the trampoline and flip out of it,” he says, and pauses. “I got really comfortable upside-down.”

In 1992, Kathy contacted Tim Windell, who runs an ski and snowboarding camp in the summer on Mount Hood in Oregon. Impressed by White’s skills, Windell adjusted his prices to suit the family’s budget. By day, the White children would snowboard under the watchful eyes of pro snowboarders and skiers and, at night, the family would sleep in their camper van.

“I blame snowboarding for being tight with my parents,” says White. “How rad is that?”
His development was impressive. “Gravity never seemed to hold him back,” said Windell. He proved especially good at breaking down the tricks of other snowboarders, and then doing them better.

“I wasn’t afraid to practise,” says White. “I would go to that mountain and say ‘What’s the least favourite trick that I have? What’s the hardest one for me?’ and I’d just do it all day and it became my favourite.”

At age 13, White turned pro. It was exactly the right time. If ski resorts spent most of the ’80s and early 90s kicking snowboarders off their mountains, they spent the rest of the 90s building halfpipes and opening up new mountains to appeal to the exploding snowboard market. By 1998, it was part of the Olympics.

But it was the X Games, the alternative summer and winter games backed by the US sports broadcaster ESPN, that gave board sports stars a consistent platform. White won his first two X Games golds in 2003, at the age of 16, which began a run of gold medals every year until 2006. International success followed.

“He can do tricks other people do, and they can do the tricks he can do,” says Bridges. “But he can do it when it counts.” So when he stood at the lip of the halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino after a sub-par first qualifying run, those who knew White could predict what would come next. White laid down a run of back-to-back 1080-degree spins that scored so high it effectively put him beyond the reach of the other competitors. Overnight, America had a new hero.

This is an abridged version of the full interview which appears in The Red Bulletin. Download it here.

Photos Adam Moran