Snowboard

Ken Achenbach surprises people with how well he remembers many of the kids who have streamed through his snowboard camp over the last couple of decades.

The former Canadian halfpipe champ has seen thousands of faces, but a few have really stood out.

He won't soon forget one skinny, red-headed kid from California who showed up at his Whistler, B.C., training centre 17 years ago.

While Achenbach admits he doesn't recall the six-year-old's snowboarding skills, he certainly remembers young Shaun White's determination.

"He rode all day, all day, all day,'' said Achenbach, owner and director of Camp of Champions. "He wasn't scared to push it either, which is pretty awesome.

"I guess there was a reason I remembered him.''

White has since exploded into a global snowboarding sensation.

The 2006 Olympic gold medallist, known for his trademark mop of ginger hair, has amassed millions of dollars in endorsements, designed his own clothing line and inspired top-selling video games that carry his name.

The 23-year-old has fond memories of British Columbia, where in two weeks he will defend his Olympic title at the Vancouver Winter Games.

A family of powder hounds, the Whites would regularly pile into a camper van, leave their Carlsbad, Calif., home behind, and search for snow. Sometimes they would head as far as Canada, but always on a budget.

"We would just camp because we couldn't really afford the hotels and everything,'' White told The Canadian Press last week from Aspen, Colo. "We'd be camping and there's bears everywhere and it was just amazing - I was blown away.''

White admits he never actually came face to face with a Canadian bear, but said he was forever marked by the local supermarkets.

"When you go into the grocery store there, there's always big, giant barrels of candy and I remember that used to just blow my mind,'' said White.

"I was like, 'Why don't we have this in the U.S.? We need this badly.'''

In his return to Canada, he will drop down the seven-metre ice walls of the halfpipe for one of the most hyped-up events of the Winter Olympics.

The Lamborghini-driving White, who's built an impressive collection of X Games medals for snowboarding and skateboarding, won't go unnoticed - even if he tried.

A snowboarding innovator, he has pushed the limits of aerial halfpipe manoeuvres so far over the last year that it's become dangerous for rivals to keep up.

White shook the snowboarding world last year by adding back-to-back double cork 1080s - two flips while spinning three times off-axis - to his run.

Achenbach credits a friend of his for coming up with the best description for the dizzying double cork: "It's like a bag filled with wet cats chucked off a cliff.''

The double cork quickly became the must-have trick for halfpipers heading into the Olympics. By December, several boarders had added it to their repertoire.

White took notice and turned things up a notch.

"I was blown away by the amount of riders that were attempting these double corks, and so that's when I decided I needed to really get it going,'' said White, who trains at his own private, Olympic-sized halfpipe hidden in Colorado's back country.

Last month, he amazed the community again by landing his latest trick - the Double McTwist 1260 - in competition.

"It was unbelievable - it's a trick that I didn't even imagine I was going to be able to do,'' White said of the manoeuvre, which combines three-and-a-half spins and two flips.

"I mean, Jeez, to land it in-run was just unbelievable, and then to post a 49.5 (score) out of 50 wasn't too bad, either.''

One of several YouTube videos showing White's Double McTwist drew more than 400,000 hits in four days.

"It's sick,'' Team Canada halfpipe veteran Justin Lamoureux said. "It's the sickest pipe trick I've ever seen.''

But the sport's rapid progression has also led to more injuries.

White admits he was nervous when trying to learn the tricks, which riders can't safely bail out of once they commit.

Top American snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffered a serious head injury in December when he crashed while practising a double cork in Utah. He is still in hospital.

White's halfpipe - which can only be accessed by helicopter or snowmobile - has a built-in pit filled with foam bricks, but he's still had his share of bang-ups.

"I hit my head on the deck about three times and I was just crashing all over the place,'' said White, who also chipped a bone in his ankle attempting the trick.

"I don't think I've fallen this much in the past couple of years as I have this season just getting ready.''

White smacked his face on the top of the ice wall last Friday while practising the Double McTwist at the X Games. Undaunted, he later landed the trick in competition to win his third straight superpipe gold.

Few things have held White back - even when he was an infant.

Not even a year old, White had already undergone two major heart operations to fix a defect.

He showed promise as both a snowboarder and a skateboarder from an early age. Burton Snowboards signed him to his first sponsorship deal when he was seven years old.

He eventually caught the eye of skateboard hero Tony Hawk, who took the nine-year-old White under his wing - at least when it came to skateboarding.

White said it's a different story when he and Hawk go snowboarding.

"It's hilarious,'' White said of Hawk, who stands six foot three.

"Not in a bad way - in normal standards, he's a really talented snowboarder, he's pretty good, but he's just got this crazy, tall-guy style.''

Lamoureux, a resident of Squamish, B.C., said White stands out today because he spent his childhood learning from superstars like Hawk.

"If you took a kid who was good in hockey and let him play with Wayne Gretzky and Sidney Crosby from the age of nine, by the time he's 20 he's going to be pretty damn good,'' said Lamoureux, who's known White for about a decade.

"When you're a little kid, you see that as your standard and that's what you go for.''

Canadian halfpipe coach Tom Hutchinson points to White's work ethic.

"Not only is he great, and he's been great, he works harder than everybody else,'' Hutchinson said.

"He'll be riding all day and then he'll come down and he'll hit the gym or he'll go and skateboard for hours and that. He lives skateboarding and snowboarding.

"If he has his perfect run, will anybody beat him? No.''

Forbes estimates that White earned US$9 million in 2008, with most of the cash coming from endorsements.

But for the last year, his focus has been firmly set on another Olympic gold.

"It's something that is bigger than yourself, I mean you're going out there and you're representing the U.S.,'' he said.

"Our sport's so unique because of the fact we actually do everything on our own accord. It's not a team sport in that sense and this is the only event that really puts you on a team.''

White won gold in last year's World Cup event at West Vancouver's Cypress Mountain, the 2010 Olympic snowboarding headquarters.

This time around, he'll be banking on double corks and the Double McTwist.

"I'm hoping this trick lasts a couple of more weeks - that would be nice,'' he said, hinting he could unleash something new, if needed.

"I wouldn't say that there's nothing in store, so I'll leave it there. I don't want to give away everything.''

Achenbach, a legend of Canadian snowboarding, said most of North America's top riders have passed through his camp at one time or another.

He said some campers sign up to simply have fun in the snow, while others join in because their parents send them.

Even at six years old, White fell into the category of kids aiming to take the craft to another level, Achenbach said.

"He was definitely in the part where he was here to get better and go pro,'' said Achenbach, the Canadian halfpipe champ for most of the 1980s.

"Oh my God, man, I'm so glad I don't have to compete against him.''