One board legend to another: Tony Hawk urges Shaun White to "keep riding"

“My advice to Shaun White, when it’s all over, would be this: Keep riding.”

That’s what Tony Hawk – among the best skateboarders of all-time and his sport’s most recognisable icon – told Olympics.com just a few hours before White, the greatest halfpipe snowboarder in history, took the last run of his competitive career at these Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.

“But do it for fun,” Hawk continued, perhaps remembering his own retirement from nearly 20 years of professional competition skateboarding, back in 2003. “That’s what fuels you. It’s about that extension of yourself and that outlet.”

Common bonds

Tony Hawk and Shaun White share much in common.

They both have roots in Carlsbad, California – on the edges of San Diego. They’re both legends in the world of boardsports – Hawk as the greatest-ever halfpipe (vert) skateboarder and White as an innovator and two-decade dominator of snowboarding’s version of the same apparatus.

The end of White’s competitive career played out last night in the massive halfpipe at the Genting Snow Park. And under the brightest lights on the Olympic stage (his fifth Winter Games, spanning 16 years).

And such was the power of his lore and the memory of his three previous Olympic golds, that most still expected White, at the age of 35, ravaged by injuries and without having won a competition since he pulled off a pair of 1440s for gold in PyeongChang in 2018, to go out on top.

That’s what happens when you’re the best for so long. No one can imagine you losing.

Fourth finish – frozen in time

But all things end.

He was in pain. He wasn’t among the favourites. And he was up against some of the best of an outrageous new breed of rider who, willingly and enthusiastically, admit the huge debt of gratitude they owe to White’s two decades of innovation and influence.

Hirano Ayumu unleashed the triple cork for the first time on Olympic snow. He soared over the competition to win gold and usher in a new era of amplitude that speaks to the endless progression of the sport.

The night saw a torch passed, as it often does in sport, from White to Hirano.

“I aspired to, no sh___ t be like you,"_ Scotty James, 27, of Australia, who won silver on the day with a switch backside 1260-to-1440 combo, told White after beating his idol-turned-competitor. The 23-year-old Hirano, who finished behind White with Olympic silver at PyeongChang 2018 added: “He [White] has always been my motivation.”

“You always want more as a competitor, but I’m proud,” White said after falling in his last run, finishing off the podium in fourth but leaving to an ovation from fans and peers alike – and an avalanche of well wishes and thank-yous from around the globe via social media. “I’m proud of every moment.”

His tears fell, and they ran hard. The future can be a terrifying thing, especially when you’ve lost a loved one. “Snowboarding, thank you” White croaked through his tears. “It’s been the love of my life.”

Tony Hawk never had the chance to climb an Olympic podium, but he was instrumental in making sure his sport of skateboarding finally got there last year in Tokyo. Well, it should be said, that in a manner of speaking, he did make it to the Olympics – and not just figuratively.

“I just happened to be there so I snuck on,” he said of getting on the park course for a ride or two before the competing athletes did. “No one was looking, so I just dropped in.”

And Hawk, now 52, owner of Birdhouse Skateboards, a philanthropist and video game namesake, and the father of four, has more advice for White, to whom he sent a video message of support after news of the snowboarding great’s retirement broke last week.

Hawk proof of future beyond competition

“I’m living proof of maybe how far you can take it – and to what age,” said Hawk, doing the rounds with select media as part of his role as ambassador for the Laureus World Sports Academy, a global organisation that uses the power of sport to transform the lives of children and young people.

“It’s not about winning,” insisted Hawk, who won over 70 contests in his competing days and is credited with inventing more than 80 tricks. “I just think for his own sanity, he needs to keep riding his snowboard. Don’t just hang it up.”

There’s something essential here. A deeply-held truth alive in the boardsports, the action sports – the so-called outsider pursuits. In a profound way, it’s not about the winning. Or the losing. The win is in the doing, and Hawk – still in the halfpipe to this day and still relevant in so many ways – knows it better than most.

And he’s happy to share.

“It’s so hard when you have been competing at that level for this long,” said Hawk, whose own career spanned three decades (the 80, 90s and 2000s) and ended shortly after he became the first man to land the historic 900 in 1999. “For him [White] it’s close to 20 years now. It’s really hard to turn that off.”

It won’t be easy for White, who’s old enough to remember when they dug out the halfpipes with shovels. It won’t be easy for snowboarding either. Break-ups are hard. The homage paid by Hirano and James, and Swiss bronze surprise Jan Scherrer, after all three flew past their boyhood hero, and into a future impossible to define – and without limits – is evidence of the passing of something special.

A skateboarding future for White?

But Hawk, never short of suggestions or ideas, might have just the solution for White, who’s also a talented park skateboarder who seriously considered a run at last year’s Tokyo Summer Games.

If he had followed through, he would have competed against the two-sport Hirano – the very man who took over his crown as the world’s best in the snowboard halfpipe here in the snows outside Beijing.

“If Shaun wants to get back into skateboarding, he knows where to find me,” Hawk said with a laugh, but surely only half-kidding.

While Hawk’s initial advice to leave the winning and losing in the past seems sound enough, you can’t blame us if we allow ourselves to imagine a Hirano Ayumu–Shaun White showdown, a rematch, this time in the concrete bowls of Paris 2024?