On 27 January 2013, Shaun White stood atop the Winter X Games SuperPipe podium in Aspen, Colorado, for the sixth year running. The victory carried his gold count to 13 and his total medal haul to 18, more than any athlete in X Games history. No athlete had ever reached that combined mark.
A sixth straight SuperPipe gold in the Aspen night
On the Buttermilk Mountain pipe, White posted a best run of 98.00 to take a sixth consecutive SuperPipe title. At 26 he was the oldest rider in the field that night. It was another commanding run down the Aspen wall.
The nearest challenge came from a debutant. Ayumu Hirano, a 14-year-old rookie, scored 92.33 for second, having reached the final only after qualifying sixth. At 14 he was the youngest competitor at the 2013 Winter X Games.
The win came about four months after White was arrested on vandalism and public intoxication charges at a Nashville hotel. He cut his hair, saw the charges dropped, and answered on the snow. The response was gold.
Thirteen titles, all his own in the pipe
The feat was rare. Only SnoCross racer Tucker Hibbert had also won six straight X Games golds, a mark he reached earlier the same day. A year before, White had scored a perfect 100 in the same pipe.
By then his Olympic story was well advanced, with halfpipe titles at Turin 2006 and Vancouver 2010. He would later add a third at PyeongChang 2018, becoming the first snowboarder to win three Olympic golds. His career closed at Beijing 2022.
"I don't think I've ever been more focused and more in tune with what I'm doing physically as well as mentally," Shaun White told reporters afterwards. It proved his last Winter X Games medal, since he sat out the following year to prepare for the Sochi Olympics, leaving Aspen at the top of his sport. It remains a benchmark of the sport.
