Flying Tomato Closes Eyes During Spins

Shaun White, Home And Happy, Talks About Winning Snowboard Halfpipe

(CBS)  Shaun White, fresh from victory at the Torino Olympics, is back in the United States and visited The Early Show to talk about the experience.

The 19-year-old California native is known by a nickname he doesn't particularly like — Flying Tomato — because of his bright red hair. He told co-anchor Harry Smith about the "amazing" experience of arriving at the Olympic stadium for opening ceremonies.

"There's this point when you have the flags in your hand and you're running through the crowd and you enter the stadium and it was packed," White said. "It was just a cool thing to be a part of the team."

White also admitted to a case of the nerves before his competition, though he tried hard to talk his way out of it.

"I was the one telling my teammates, 'It's no big deal, it's like any other contest.' I was just saying that to downplay it in my own mind and when I got up there the crowd was insane," he said.

White also talked about how he struggled to concentrate when he looked down from the top of the mountain and saw a lot more than the course ahead of him.

"You look down and the sides of the halfpipe are just packed with people. I could see my family members way down at the bottom. I remember my first run I was kind of looking at the crowd instead of the halfpipe and I just had a stumble there," he told Smith. "I was just so upset at myself because I didn't take it as serious as I should have."

White said he was so mad at himself for falling, it was an extra incentive to make up for it later, which he did. Smith asked whether White knew during his run that it was a gold-medal performance, but the athlete says it was a moment for feeling, more than thinking.

"I kind of click into this zone," he said. "I can't really hear anything, I don't really look around too much. I just feel it. Some of the spins I close my eyes because it's like a feeling. People trip out when I say that."