Shaun White withdraws from 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics snowboarding slopestyle event to focus on halfpipe

The new Winter Olympics slopestyle event has already caused a number of minor injuries in practice runs for many contestants and now the biggest name in snowboarding, Shaun White, has decided to pull out to avoid injury and to focus on the halfpipe.

"With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on," White said in a statement. The Olympian is hoping to win the gold medal his third year in a row for the halfpipe competition.

"After much deliberation with my team, I have made the decision to focus solely on trying to bring home the third straight gold medal in halfpipe for Team USA," the statement continued. "The difficult decision to forgo slopestyle is not one I take lightly as I know how much effort everyone has put into holding the slopestyle event for the first time in Olympic history, a history I had planned on being part of."

ESPN reports:

Slopestyle is a speed-packed trip down the mountain filled with rails, bumps and, most notably, steeply angled jumps that allow riders to flip two, sometimes three times, before landing. White hurt his wrist on one of the takeoffs, which one top rider, Canadian Mark McMorris, said were built "kind of obnoxiously tall."

"He's a notable person and he probably would have brought more viewers to slopestyle," said Olympic slopetyle skier Nick Goepper.

Do you think that White's dropping out will hurt this new event?