Shaun White makes Olympic snowboarding team as oldest U.S. halfpipe rider ever

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Shaun White was named to his fifth and likely final Olympic team, as expected, and will become the oldest U.S. halfpipe rider in Winter Games history.

The full snowboard roster was announced Friday.

White, a three-time gold medalist, leads a men’s halfpipe team of underdogs for medals in China. White made one podium in five contests since returning from a three-year break last year. Riders from Japan and Australia are the favorites.

White, 35, will break the retired Kelly Clark‘s record as the oldest U.S. Olympic halfpipe rider. He is also older than any previous male halfpipe rider from any nation in Olympic history, according to Olympedia.org.

The rest of the men’s halfpipe team: 2014 Olympian Taylor Gold, 2018 Olympian Chase Josey and first-timer Lucas Foster.

MORE: U.S. athletes qualified for 2022 Winter Olympics

Defending Olympic champion Chloe Kim and fellow medal threat Maddie Mastro previously qualified in women’s halfpipe. Coaches announced two more riders Friday — first-time Olympians Zoe Kalapos and Tessa Maud.

The snowboard cross team includes the oldest athlete on the entire U.S. Olympic team — 40-year-old Nick Baumgartner — and now-five-time Olympian Lindsey Jacobellis. Both previously qualified, as did Hagen Kearney and Faye Gulini. The new additions announced Friday: 2019 World champion Mick Dierdorff, 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Alex Deibold, Stacy Gaskill and Meghan Tierney.

The U.S. earned two spots in parallel giant slalom, both men, and filled them with Cody Winters and Robby Burns.

In slopestyle, defending gold medalists Jamie Anderson and Red Gerard previously qualified. As did returning Olympians Hailey Langland and Chris Corning and first-time Olympian Dusty Henricksen.

The final riders were Julia Marino, Courtney Rummel and Sean FitzSimons, who won a competition in Switzerland last week and beat out Brock Crouch for the last spot. That’s notable given Crouch survived life-altering injuries after being buried for several minutes in an avalanche four years ago.

In freestyle skiing, the last Olympic roster spots were also announced Friday:

Aerials: Eric Loughran, Ashley Caldwell, Kaila Kuhn
Halfpipe: Birk Irving, Devin Logan, Carly Margulies
Moguls: Kai Owens, Cole McDonald, Nick Page, Dylan Walczyk, Bradley Wilson
Ski Cross: Tyler Wallasch
Slopestyle/Big Air: Nick Goepper, Caroline Claire, Marin Hamill, Darian Stevens

Many Olympic medal contenders previously qualified, including two-time Olympic halfpipe champion David Wise.

A notable is Margulies, who last competed in an International Ski Federation event in December 2019 and was cleared to return to skiing last week, one month after surgery for a torn medial meniscus in her left knee. Margulies has had at least six knee surgeries, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard.

“I was told by doctors that the tear was so significant that surgery was a non negotiable and i was looking at a 6 to 9 month recovery,” was posted on her social media last month. “i was basically told my olympic dreams were crushed and in that moment i decided i could never go through something like this again therefore my competitive career was over.

“Fast forward to a few days later, i received good news that there was a chance this meniscus would not be repairable resulting in a snip of the damaged area and only a 4 to 6 week recovery!”

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Eva Samková, Olympic snowboarding champion, to miss Beijing Winter Games

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Czech Eva Samková, the 2014 Olympic snowboard cross champion, will miss the Beijing Games due to an ankle injury that has kept her out of competition since early December.

Samková, last season’s World Cup leader, needed surgery on the ankle and, after six weeks of rehab, announced she will not be able to return in time for the Olympics, according to the Czech ski and snowboard federation.

Samková, 28, vowed that she will eventually return to competition once healed.

Samková followed junior world titles in 2010, 2011 and 2013 with gold in her Olympic debut in Sochi, posting the fastest time in the seeding round and then sweeping quarterfinal, semifinal and final races.

She took bronze in 2018, when Italian Michela Moioli won.

In 2021, Samková won four of her eight World Cup starts before being sidelined by the injury.

The Olympic favorites are Great Britain’s Charlotte Bankes, the reigning world champion and current World Cup standings leader, and Moioli.

American Lindsey Jacobellis, going to her fifth Olympics, finished third in the two most recent World Cups won by Bankes.

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Lindsey Jacobellis qualifies for fifth Olympics in snowboard cross

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Lindsey Jacobellis is going to a U.S. female record-tying fifth Winter Olympics, extending one of the sterling careers in snowboarding.

Jacobellis, 36, clinched her spot in snowboard cross this weekend, grabbing back-to-back third-place finishes at World Cups in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

She joined the previously qualified Faye Gulini and Nick Baumgartner (oldest U.S. Olympic snowboarder in history at age 40) on the team. Hagen Kearney, another fellow PyeongChang Olympian, clinched his spot Sunday, too.

U.S. coaches can two more men and two more women to the team.

MORE: U.S. athletes qualified for 2022 Winter Olympics

Jacobellis owns 15 gold medals between the biennial world championships (the last in 2017) and the annual X Games, which stopped holding snowboard cross competitions after 2016. She owns one Olympic medal, silver from her debut in 2006, when she led the final going into the last jump and fell doing a premature celebratory board grab.

Jacobellis finished in the top five of six of her last seven World Cups dating to last February, with elbow surgery in between in the autumn, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboard. Her last win came in February 2019.

The Olympic gold-medal favorites are led by Great Britain’s Charlotte Bankes, the reigning world champion and current World Cup standings leader, and reigning Olympic champion Michela Moioli of Italy.

Another contender, Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic, the 2014 gold medalist, hasn’t competed in nearly a month after suffering ankle injuries that set back her prep for Beijing.

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Lindsey Jacobellis
20th — 2001 X Games
21st — 2002 X Games
Gold — 2003 X Games
Gold — 2004 X Games
Gold — 2005 Worlds
Gold — 2005 X Games
*** Skipped 2006 X Games
Silver — 2006 Olympics
Silver — 2007 X Games
Gold — 2007 Worlds
Gold — 2008 X Games
Gold — 2009 X Games
*** Skipped 2009 Worlds
Gold — 2010 X Games
Fifth — 2010 Olympics
Gold — 2011 Worlds
Gold — 2011 X Games
*** Tore ACL/meniscus in 2012 X Games training run
Gold — 2014 X Games
Seventh — 2014 Olympics
Gold — 2015 Worlds
Gold — 2015 X Games
Gold — 2016 X Games
Gold — 2017 Worlds
Fourth — 2018 Olympics
Fifth — 2019 World Championships
Ninth — 2021 World Championships