Training a champion

Stowe’s Bud Keene, Shaun White’s coach, has high hopes for his pupil

Two-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White will again headline the 2014 U.S. Olympic Snowboard Team. He’ll be defending his Olympic title in halfpipe, and his coach, Stowe’s Bud Keene, could not be more confident in White’s prospects.

Keene has been White’s coach since 2005. In fact, Keene said he’s the only coach White has ever had. Sochi will be their fourth Olympic Games together, and Keene said White is riding his best.

“He’s better now than he ever was, for sure,” Keene said. And that’s saying something since, at age 27, White holds the X Games records for most gold medals and for highest overall medal count. In addition to his two Olympic golds, White has also earned 10 ESPY Awards to date.

Now White is the first athlete to qualify for both the halfpipe and slopestyle events in Sochi. Keene thinks White would have been a serious gold medal contender in both disciplines. However, White withdrew at the last minute from the slopestyle competition, opting instead to focus on winning an unprecedented third straight gold in halfpipe.

White’s U.S. teammates include Greg Bretz of Mammoth Lakes, Calif.; Danny Davis of Truckee, Calif.; and Taylor Gold of Steamboat Springs, Colo., in the halfpipe competition. The U.S. men’s slopestyle competitors include Sage Kotsenburg of Park City, Utah; Chas Guldemond of Reno, Nevada; and Ryan Stassel of Anchorage, Alaska.

If you were keeping an eye on qualifier points, you might think White was having a tough time this year. Keene said White tweaked his ankle at the first Olympic halfpipe qualifier in Breckenridge, and ended up pulling out of the slopestyle competition. They also decided not to compete in halfpipe at the Copper Mountain qualifier, although White did compete in slopestyle there.

Then, before nailing down his slopestyle spot at Mammoth, White had an uncharacteristic face-plant on his first run. But that didn’t stop him from getting the job done by the end of the day.

Keene said the competitions missed were all part of a long-term strategy to keep White healthy and in the running for both disciplines.

“We’ve just had to strategize like never before,” Keene said. “We kept our eye on the prize the whole time.”

It was about two years ago when the Olympic Committee decided to include slopestyle among the snowboarding competitions. Keene said, “Shaun’s immediate reaction to that was that he wanted to do it.”

But, early Wednesday, White announced his “difficult decision” to withdraw from slopestlye to focus on the halfpipe competition set for Tuesday at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association does not plan to replace him.

Asked if he’s worried about security in Sochi, Keene noted the first Olympiad he went to with White was in Salt Lake City just months after the 9/11 attacks. He said being at the Olympic Games on American soil at that time was perhaps more of a concern. Although, he added, security was tight in Salt Lake City, as it was in Turin, Italy, in 2006, and in Vancouver, Canada, in 2010. He is confident Russian, U.S. and international security forces will keep them safe.

Keene likened the experience to getting on an airplane and flying halfway around the world.

“You just have to assume that this is being taken care of,” he said, “and in the final analysis I have bigger things to worry about, and that’s winning the gold medal.”

Keene will return to Stowe after the games, on Feb. 14. He said he plans on bringing a gold medal back with him.