Aspen – The pressure was enough to stifle the best.
As the blond trio of U.S. Olympic boarding bowed out from the X Games contests that had ferried their aerial prowess into millions of homes and hearts, the burden of choosing between X and O was heavy on the shoulders of Shaun White.
“Those chicks are stressing me out,” said White, America’s great red-topped hope for Olympic boarding gold and the X Games’ wonder boy. “They have my family going crazy. Everyone’s like, ‘What are you doing, Shaun? Think about what you are doing and just be safe.’
“I am being safe. I’ve been riding since I was 6, and it’s what I love to do. I am not going to get stressed out about not competing. I don’t need that pressure.”
U.S. Olympian snowboarders Lindsey Jacobellis, Gretchen Bleiler and Hannah Teter withdrew from this week’s X Games contests, citing the need to focus on their pending role under the world’s brightest sporting lights next month in Italy.
“I want to be 100 percent going into Torino,” read a brief statement from Bleiler, the gold-maned Aspenite snowboarder who pulled out of the X Games a few minutes before last Saturday’s qualifying contest in the high-walled superpipe that launched her career into superstar realms.
Boardercrossing’s top woman, Jacobellis, nixed the X after straining her knee in a training run on the X Games course last Saturday, according to a statement. Teter quietly shunned X without a statement.
The mightiest triumvirate of women’s snowboarding had just concluded a lengthy Olympic qualifying tour. They were tired, and ultimately they chose O over X, despite many previous promises of hard-charging performances under the X lights in Aspen.
“I can understand them dropping out,” said Kristi Leskinen, the Pennsylvania skier whose skills and style has propelled her into role-model status for countless women in the snow world. “Their bodies are beat up, and they need to recover. I don’t think it’s Olympic fever. Well, maybe some. But they are whooped.”
The ballyhooed women of X have a particularly large debt of gratitude to the event that has groomed them for Olympic glory. There’s little question that X has nurtured snowboarding through its formative years and provided an illuminating stage for women riders who struggle to shine under the glare of their male counterparts.
“Those girls are smart, and they have to put their highest priorities first,” said Danny Kass, the Olympic-bound snowboarder whose switch backside rodeo (backward and upside down) over the 55-foot gap jump earned him a bronze medal in the X Games slopestyle contest last week. “The X Games have been here so long, it’s really hard to pass it up. They have taken good care of snowboarding and we have to come here and showcase our talents. It’s for the kids, man.”
He said all those kids would be miffed “if I didn’t go. I don’t want that hate mail.”
White and Kass had qualified for the X Games final in the superpipe after flawless runs in which no one could say they were holding something back. Turin-bound boarder Kelly Clark handily aced the X superpipe without any meddling from her skilled comrades Bleiler and Teter. Boardercross Olympians Nate Holland and Seth Wescott battled like warriors in their X showdown.
“I don’t get those ladies. Every day of snowboarding is practice,” Swede freeski star Jon Olsson said. “I mean, we would love to get a shot in the Olympics, but we have to remember our roots here at X. I would understand doing what they are doing if it’s for health reasons, but if it’s strategic or some kind of mind game, that’s not the way I would do it. This pipe is the best on earth. Why would you not want to ride it?”
Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
