Shaun White stomps his way into Olympic final after fall

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Shaun White let up just the tiniest bit as he jerked his body around for a trick — his signature trick, and a trick he's landed without a hitch hundreds of times before.

The next thing he knew, he said, "I'm ... thinking, ‘Wow, I only have one more chance to get this done.’"

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After an untimely fall in the first round of qualifying, the most-successful halfpipe rider in history turned the drama up to "11" on Wednesday, coming through huge in a land-or-go-home run that put him into the medal round at his fifth and final Olympics.

"It was not," White said, "a position I like to be in a lot."

White found himself there when he eased up every so slightly on "The Tomahawk," — a trick he invented more than a decade ago that involves a frontside takeoff and then 1260 degrees of spin at a diagonal, off-axis angle.

He most famously stuck that trick to cap off the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, in a "victory run" after his gold medal had already been sealed and he was simply showing off for the crowd.

At 35 and with one more contest left in his storied career, White doesn't have that luxury anymore. Still, he wasn't alone in assuming he'd be in a fight to the finish come Friday, where two-time silver medalist Ayumu Hirano and 2018 bronze medalist Scotty James are among those who will be waiting to take his title.

But after the fall in the first of two qualifying rounds, nothing felt certain. In the preliminaries, riders get two chances and their best score counts. The top 12 riders advance. After Round 1, White was in 19th place.

"I was thinking a lot about that, like, how if the next run went terribly, I'd be standing here,