Shaun White wrapped himself in the American flag. Yuto Totsuka was wrapped in a blanket.
This is what almost all of us will remember of Tuesday night’s prime time coverage on NBC, no matter how many other compelling stories and angles there may have been.
High-tech wizardry continues to bring us the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics with detail, intimacy, angles and platforms barely imaginable a half-century ago.
Yet, as demonstrated again so vividly and viscerally Tuesday night, it all still distills to the simple and streamlined “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition” formula so perfectly articulated in Jim McKay’s lyrical opening to ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” from the early 1960s.
Long after the specifics grow hazy, we will be left with these two enduring, evocative images from a night when blustery weather in the mountains again forced postponement of Alpine skiing event:
One is U.S. snowboarder White, exultant and unable to stop crying after an adrenaline-fueled final run landed his redemptive third career Olympics gold medal in the halfpipe.
The other, indelibly etched even without NBC dwelling on it, is Japan’s Totsuka taken away on a stretcher en route to a hospital after a gruesome and sobering crash not long before.
Ecstasy, meet agony.
“That is the run that (White) needed, and he put it down,” NBC analyst Todd Richards said. “Pressure makes him freak out in a halfpipe, and it’s so good for us as fans, because we get to see the best riding ever, whenever Shaun White pushes his limits.”
“Freak out” can mean different things to different people.
The word from Team Japan some hours later was Totsuka was in pain but the injury was not considered serious.
The 16-year-old flew higher than he apparently could handle, his pelvis landing hard on the rim of the pipe, a fall of perhaps 10 to 15 feet followed an additional 22 feet down to the bottom of the pipe.
The crowd on hand — and at home — watched in stunned silent as emergency workers tended to him.
The teen’s fall recalled a much-seen video clip of White’s own bloody accident in New Zealand while training four months ago. While it’s difficult to measure both the physical and psychological damage, one metric for his injuries: White required 62 stitches.
That offered a stark contrast to the high-flying stunts White, 31, made seem at least possible if not at all easy in picking up his 2018 halfpipe gold medal (after a disappointing turn four years ago in Sochi) to go with the ones he earned in 2010 and ’06.
White’s 97.75 on his last run — which even viewers who wouldn’t know a Double McTwist from a Grand Big Mac could marvel at — vaulted him past Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, 19, whose 95.25 performance had edged him ahead of White’s initial run of 94.25.
“(It’s) the return of the king in the men’s halfpipe,” NBC announcer Todd Harris said as White’s winning marks were revealed and White reveled. “White is the new gold! For the third time in his career, Shaun White is draped in the stars and stripes as Olympic champion.”
If Totsuka makes it back to another Winter Olympics, his own fall will be juxtaposed with his hoped-for rise.
A key to Olympics storytelling, especially in sports most people only watch closely every four years, is to stick to one or two narratives.
One story thread of White’s return to the top of medal stand that didn’t get much attention, as USA Today columnist Christine Brennan and a few other journalists noted, are sexual harassment allegations in a civil suit.
Lena Zawaideh, the drummer of his band, Bad Things, whose accusations included that he sent her “sexually explicit and graphic images.”
White denied the allegations in the suit but admitted sending the texts and initially seemed eager to take on Zawaideh, according to USA Today. But the lawsuit was settled out of court a year ago.
“Why in the world aren’t we talking about this? In the midst of the #MeToo movement, how has White somehow flown under the radar?” Brennan asked in her column.
White worked his way past the one question he fielded about the allegations after his medal win in South Korea as effectively as he did the halfpipe course.
“Honestly, I’m here to talk about the Olympics, not gossip,” White told reporters. “I am who I am, and I’m proud of who I am and my friends love me and vouch for me and I think that stands on its own.”
White was still standing, and that was all the clearer with the memory of Totsuka, who when last seen wasn’t.
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
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