Shaun White lost a Winter X Games halfpipe for the first time since 2007, finishing fourth, just as he did at the Sochi Olympics.
U.S. Olympic teammate Danny Davis won for the second straight year with a 93.66-point final run (watch it here). White, who skipped X Games last year for the first time since 1999, had a top score of 82 over his three runs in finals. It marked his first competition since Sochi.
Olympic bronze medalist Taku Hiraoka of Japan was second with 92.33, followed by Olympic champion Iouri Podladtchikov with 89.
Davis won on the very last run of the competition.
“Very unexpected,” Davis, who was 10th at the Sochi Olympics, said on ESPN. “I haven’t been riding a ton of pipe this year.”
White, the oldest man in the field at 28, won every X Games halfpipe from 2008 through 2013. He was second in 2007 and was last off the podium in 2005, when he was fourth.
White said on Thursday that he tweaked his back in a recent spill in practice.
His coach, Bud Keene, said this of White before the competition, according to the Associated Press:
“His career is far from over, athletically. He’s still, hands down, the best halfpipe rider in the world, and not by a small margin.”