Fans lament the increasing subjectivity of Olympic sports. Ice skating involved objectively-measured “school figures” in the Scotty Hamilton era, later replaced by short routines that allow judges to reward veterans and put rookies behind the (figure) eight-ball.
But judged competitions have an allure of their own. In skating, gymnastics, diving and X Games, the “perfect ten” or “perfect 100” remains an elusive holy grail for athletes.
You don’t see a perfect score too often. But snowboarder Shaun White, maligned for years after injuries and personal issues, ripped a 100 in an Olympic qualifying run on Saturday to the delight of fans around the globe.
Here’s video of White’s historic run:
Social media has alighted in praise of White, called the “Tony Hawk” of a new generation by one breathless Twitter user:
We can forgive Mr. DeeJay leaving out the apostrophe and the “s.” He’s enraptured, as are others who saw the event:
And a reflection on the perfect run by the man himself:
White will compete for a gold medal in snowboarding at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in February. He is currently unranked on all of SNIPdaily’s popularity charts, including the Twitter Top 100. But that could change in a hurry, especially if the veteran performer backs up Saturday’s trial with gold in South Korea.
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