White captures snowboarding gold for USA

WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- American Shaun White, who became the global face of snowboarding when he won the Olympic halfpipe event four years ago, repeated as champion Wednesday.

White has helped carry the various snowboarding disciplines into the sporting mainstream and he put on another dazzling show of leaps, spins and flips in the halfpipe.

He received a score of 46.8 for his first trip down the 100-meter channel of ice and when it came time for his second run he was already the gold medal winner.

Only the best of the two runs is counted as the final score and no one's second attempt could match White's first effort.

Since it made no difference whether he succeeded or failed, White tried the toughest of his tricks coming down the second time and he pulled them off, boosting his final score to 48.4.

Peetu Piiroinen of Finland scored 45.0 on his second run to move past American Scott Lago into second place. Lago finished third, bringing the United States two medals in the event for the third straight Olympics.