Earlier this season Aussie halfpipe phenom Valentino Guseli turned a lot of heads at the Laax Open, he had the top qualifying run in the semi-finals, beating out both Scotty James and Yuto Totsuka with a crazy score of 95.0.
The day before his 16th birthday, Valentino took to the Laax Superpipe again. His competitor this time? The ghost of Shaun White’s past. Shaun’s previous record of 7 meters out of the pipe coping had stood for 11 years, until young Valentino came out swinging with a stonking 7.3 meters. For reference that’s like 3 and a half Shaquille O’Neal’s laid end to end.
Have a think back to what you were doing at 15 years old, if you’re British it probably involved drinking 2 litre bottles of White Lightning in a park, if you’re American it probably involved corndogs and cookouts, but regardless, it almost certainly didn’t involve breaking a world record previously held by the most famous snowboarder on the planet.
There’s been a lot said over the last few months about Shaun White’s ability to continue to dominate halfpipe after his 3-year absence, but nothing more so than his Superpipe World Record being smashed by a 15-year-old. Expect big things from Valentino in the future. We can only see him getting bigger and better from here on out, all hail the new Prince of Pipe.
