The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics seemed to have a spell, and almost all the defending champions failed:
Wu Dajing failed, Yusheng knotted the string failed, and the legendary snowboard king and three-time Winter Olympic champion Sean White also failed.
It's even fourth.
Can't help but sigh, the hero will also be late.
And the 35-year-old Sean White, as the god of veneers who once rode the dust, also quietly withdrew from the altar.
"Yes, I retired and it was the last time I would be on the pitch. Every step of the way has been good, and I'm not looking at it from today, but looking back at my entire career. ”
After the final of the men's U-shaped track skill of snowboarding, "elderly player" Sean White officially announced his retirement, and he couldn't help but burst into tears.
It is a bit of a pity, after all, this is the arena that he has loved religiously for so many years, and what is even more regrettable is that many people have forgotten him, and even many people do not know him.
His former glory and legend in the snowboard world are beyond the reach of future generations, and his achievements are unprecedented:
3 snowboard U-pool Winter Olympic gold medals, 13 X Games snowboard gold medals, 2 X Games skateboard gold medals.
He was the first snowboarder to win the most gold medals in the snowboarding event at the Winter Olympics and the first to win both the Summer World Series and the Winter World Series.
But what many people don't know is that as a world champion, he actually suffers from congenital heart disease.
In 1986, When Sean White was born, he was diagnosed with congenital cardiovascular malformations and was judged to have a "10% chance of living to the age of 20" as soon as he fell to the ground.
This bad news cast a thick shadow over the poor and sour family.
Sean White's mother was a restaurant waitress, his father worked at a water utility, and the homeless family of five had only an old motorhome.
In the crowded RVs, they don't live as they please, often waking up from freezing and even being chased off by parking lot administrators a few times.
But despite this, the parents tried their best to raise money to save the baby's life.
At just 5 years old, Sean White underwent several major surgeries early on, but fortunately the operations were successful.
At that time, the doctor's instructions to his parents were:
"This kid has to avoid strenuous exercise."
However, at a young age, Sean White was fond of skiing.
The happiest thing I had when I was a kid was skiing behind my 7-year-old brother.
His mother was always worried, but there was no way, and after each time he stopped, he would start again.
Later, his parents simply let him try it, and fortunately, he never had a heart attack again.
Later Sean White can't remember why he liked skiing, but he said:
"When I was a kid, I had three heart surgeries, I was full of tubes, life was unfair to me from the beginning, I shouldn't have lived so lively and so brazenly, but I wanted to prove that the so-called unfairness was wrong." 」
In this way, Shawn White Jr. started his snowboard legend in an old-fashioned and dilapidated motorhome that shuttled through various ski tracks.
"The skills that the average person plays, he can complete at a height of five times higher."
The world's skateboarders at the time said this about Shawn White, who was only 13 years old.
In the junior competition, he was a lonely being, not so much that he was pursuing the sport, but that snowboarding had found him.
Naturally, he signed the brand and became a professional player.
The life of a genius is probably very boring, in addition to winning awards or winning awards, Sean White swept the medals in various snowboard arenas.
In 2006, with long red hair, he won his first Olympic gold medal in the men's U-shaped pool of snowboarding at the Turin Winter Olympics.
So the name "flying tomato" began to resound around the entire Olympic stadium.
1 gold medal, 3 villas, 4 sports cars, countless talk shows, this is the purest happiness of a 20-year-old.
Fame and money poured in on him, and his life changed dramatically.
"One man will get the Word, and the chicken and the dog will ascend to heaven."
Everything that surrounded him turned into a job, including his family, his mother became his agent, and his brother became his creative director.
And his growing reputation has also made his strengths and weaknesses infinitely magnified by the media:
Half of it is the fanatical pursuit of genius, and half it is the unreasonable insult of eccentrics.
He was gifted and unruly, foul-mouthed, fighting, going to the police station, and hating him.
But for his veneer strength, absolutely no one questions.
Because in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, he won the gold medal by absolute advantage.
His opponents bowed to this:
"He did something I couldn't do in my life with ease."
In the final round of the final, Sean White also performed his never-before-seen killer feat, "1260 (3.5 weeks of backflips)."
He could have won the championship safely, and at that moment, as an athlete, he challenged himself without leaving himself a trace of spare energy.
Once again, the "flying tomato" has excited countless Americans.
The famous Sean White single-handedly promoted the niche sport of snowboarding to the public eye, and a generation of American teenagers began the Sean White style of "playing extreme skateboarding in the summer and snowboarding in the winter".
What many people don't know, however, is that Sean White didn't succeed so effortlessly.
Right knee surgery, right ankle fracture, left ankle fracture, knee surgery, both ankle fractures, limb fractures are commonplace, and even the skull he has broken.
"The airport security guards could find Olympic gold medals and a lot of cash in my suitcase, but they couldn't find my bruises."
In addition to only seeing Sean White's successes, people only remember his failures.
In 2014, Sean White welcomed his third Winter Olympics, the Sochi Winter Olympics.
At the age of 28, he cut off his long flowing red hair, and it seems that he is no longer a "flying tomato" when he becomes short.
This time, he didn't get the gold medal or even nothing.
"I suddenly realized that I was just an ordinary person."
Sean White said so after the defeat.
In the eyes of the public, he has become a "crushed tomato".
But for Sean White, the loss of the game made him feel that his life was suddenly bright.
"At that moment, I felt open-minded. After winning so many times, I didn't feel very excited, but when I lost, I felt incredibly relaxed and comfortable. ”
It was as if he had removed the heavy shell.
Shaun White, who once again played easily, was no longer limited to the field, he began to look for other possibilities for himself.
He founded his own band, Bad Things; participated in many film and variety shows; founded his own company; built his own fashion brand; became a major shareholder of Fisher-Price; and owned his own private snow park
Sometimes there are some difficulties and setbacks in life, but from another point of view, it is not so bad.
Sean White found another point of life outside the arena, and his life began to become full and colorful.
On the eve of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, just when everyone thought that Sean White had given up snowboarding, the news reported that he had slammed his entire head against the U-shaped pool groove for trying the most difficult move in the U-shaped pool, 1440.
At this time, everyone realized:
"Turns out this guy hasn't given up yet."
The snow was stained red, the wound was deep enough to see broken bones, the forehead and bridge of his nose were broken, and in the hospital he was stitched up for a full 62 stitches.
This time, he lay in the hospital for a month, which was still fast.
"When you really want to, you recover very quickly."
Having just recovered, he didn't stop trying again.
This time, he failed again, and was on the verge of breaking his spine.
And this time it was not just a physical injury, what made him feel very broken was that his body had begun to involuntarily evade this action that repeatedly injured him.
The coach said to him in disappointment:
"What are you afraid of?" Sean? What are you waiting for? ”
After repeated failures, Sean White sat down in the snow and slammed his helmet to the ground.
"I know how to do this action, and my body knows how to do this action, but I just can't do it."
For 31-year-old Sean White, returning to the game was a tough decision, but now that he decided to come back, he had to do his best.
It was the toughest season of his entire career, but he didn't want to give up.
In the "last train" of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics selection, Sean White made a gorgeous appearance, received full marks, and got the ticket to the Winter Olympics.
And that's just the first step.
Before the final round of the final, in the face of the menacing back wave - the 20-year-old Hirano Bumon who achieved a high score of 95.25, he had no choice but to come up with the 1440 that made him suffer, and it was two consecutive:
"You know, that's the end. This is something you've done all your life and you have to believe in yourself. ”
"Old Ji Futuo, determined to be in a thousand miles" .
For Sean White, life and competition are two parallel worlds for him, and neither of them he can give up.
In 1986, he reversed the 98-year-old youngster Hirano Yumobu with a high score of 97.75 and won the championship in one fell swoop.
Jumping from the trough to the high, he achieved a big reversal, and even at the age of 31, he was still hot.
Once again, Sean White has found a love of sport
By 2022, he was 35 years old, but he was still coming.
"My career isn't over yet, and I want to see what else I can do."
The "veteran" proved his invincibility again and again, and he reached the final.
As his former opponents grew older and newer faces emerged, he competed with Su Yiming and Hirano Mengbu, who fought in the sport of snowboarding, and Sean White was still challenging "higher, faster, stronger." ”
And this time, he was really going to end it.
"There are only two types of snowboarders, one is Sean White and the other is others."
Sean White's athletic career, which was so highly praised by the public, also came to an end.
As Huang Jianxiang said:
"The only thing that can beat Yusei and Sean White is time, and the limits of all kinds of human beings, not others."
Sean White's time is over, a new era is beginning, and heroes may come and go, but I believe this legend will always be remembered and never end.