BONGPYEONG-MYEUN, South Korea _ One of the eateries in this tiny hamlet in the Taebaek Mountains serves hamburgers. One is named after Shaun White.
Its namesake tried one the other day. "It was a magical moment," he said.
Not quite as magical as what happened just up the hill in Phoenix Snow Park on Wednesday in the finals of the snowboard halfpipe at the Winter Olympics.
It wasn't that Shaun White won the gold medal; he's done that twice before. It was where, when, why. And how.
"He's a psycho," said fellow American Jake Pates, who finished eighth and was trying to put into words what he just witnessed. "He's really, really, really good, man. And he can turn it on when he has to, land it when it means something. I think the dude thrives on pressure, honestly. History shows that dude does good when it's turned up."
Here's how much it got turned up:
White, a 31-year-old from Carlsbad, scored 94.25 on his first of three runs to take an early lead, only for Japan's Ayumu Hirano to do what only he has in snowboarding history and land back-to-back 1440s (four revolutions) for a 95.25. White, figuring he needed to match Hirano, tried back-to-back 1440s in his second run and couldn't hang onto the landing.
That left him with one run, the last of the competition, and this fate: Do something he never had, or settle for silver.
"Some people are gamers, some aren't," said coach J.J. Thomas, the 2002 bronze medalist. "He's a relentless competitor. He thrives under the pressure. That's what it takes. He almost needs the pressure to perform."
White spent the moments before the final run riding loops on the chairlift.
"Anything to distract from this pressure-cooker situation," White said. "I don't know. I sat there and looked down at the pipe. I said, 'I know you got this, you've been working on this all your life.' I dropped in and let all of those cares and worries go away and truly believed in myself.
"I knew I had it in me to do it. And I did it."
White tore off his goggles and screamed when got to the bottom of the halfpipe, then turned expectantly to the scoreboard. He and Hirano had both landed a pair of 1440s. White, though, thought he might get what Thomas calls "surprise points" for doing something new, for even trying. Clutch points.
His scores from the international panel of six judges ranged from 96 to 99. The high and low are thrown out, leaving him with three 98s and a 97 for an average of 97.75.
"I had to dig deep for this one," White said. "Getting that score at the end was so overwhelming. I was crippled with joy."
2006: gold.
2010: gold.
2018: gold.
There was no gold in Sochi in 2014 _ no medal at all, finishing fourth _ and that, as much as anything else, was responsible for what happened at Phoenix Snow Park four years later. He questioned his purpose, his fire, his future at age 31 in a sport of teenagers accelerating its progress at a frightening pace.
The answer came in not words but tears, hugging his parents and bawling in their shoulder as the announcement of his score echoed across the mountain.
"It means the world to me to come back from the defeat in Sochi and find the love and passion in my life again," White said. "It was the same situation: One run to win the gold. I just couldn't get it, I couldn't do it. I was defeated before I did it in my mind. It's rare that you get these opportunities to redeem yourself in your life and your career, and I took advantage of it."
"He was at the top for so long that (after Sochi) things were pretty hard for him," said Roger White, his father. "It's just been a roller coaster for a while."
The 1440 wasn't something White and Thomas cooked up at the top of the pipe here. They've been quietly working on it since last summer, correctly predicting the arc of their rapidly changing sport, only to be derailed by a horrific crash practicing it in New Zealand last October. White was airlifted to a local hospital and received 62 stitches in his face after he slammed it onto the lip of the pipe and tore off a chunk of his nose.
That was the least of his problems. After surgery his lungs started filling with blood and White spent five days in intensive care.
And, he freely admits, nearly quit.
He wouldn't drop into a halfpipe again until late November and he wouldn't land the 1440 again in practice last month. He and Thomas weren't sure they would even try back-to-back 1440s here, hoping White's big first run would hold up.
Then Hirano became the first person to land the back-to-back 1440s at the X Games a few weeks ago, and did it again on his second run here.
"In a way, that made it easier," Thomas said. "We knew what we had to do."
And so, in a counterintuitive way, did crashing on his first attempt.
It told him he could land it, if he just tweaked a few positions on the four-revolution spin. And it put the pressure on.
"He's there to win, he always was," Roger White said. "Back when he was a little kid, we used to go on vacation and then there'd a contest and he'd say, 'Maybe I can do that.' And he'd end up doing a contest. That's just how he's always been."
Another quirk that helped is his reluctance to watch the rest of the competition, occasionally perusing scores and relying on his coaches to be his eyes. Snowboarding is dangerous, and its frightening crashes can spook even the hardiest of psyches.
White, then, didn't see Japan's 16-year-old Yuto Totsuka land hard on the pipe's lip after being nearly 20 feet above it. Totsuka, the World Cup points leader this season, lay on his back at the bottom of the pipe for several minutes while medics skied down and loaded him onto an orange sled. There was no immediate report of his injuries, but from most accounts it didn't look good.
"Shaun doesn't actually watch the competition for that reason," Thomas said. "He prefers not to watch."
Just to win.
