Shaun White says Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 will likely be his last

Next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing looks to be Shaun White's last ride down an Olympic halfpipe.

The 35-year-old snowboarding legend told Craig Melvin on the 3rd hour of TODAY Wednesday that the upcoming Winter Olympics in February will most likely be his final Games.

"I haven’t really said this too much, so it’s going to feel weird coming out of my mouth, but this is I think my last run," White said.

White holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals of any snowboarder in history with three. He most recently took home the gold in the men's halfpipe at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

His Olympic journey began at the age of 15 when he came up just short of qualifying for a spot on the 2002 U.S. Olympic team. His first Olympics came when he was 19 when he won gold in the men's halfpipe competition in Turin, Italy in 2006.

"So it’s hard to talk about because my whole life I’ve kind of been looked at as somewhat superhuman because I do these things, and a lot of people have always come up to me and just ‘I don’t know how he does it,’ and I prided myself on being that individual," White said. "And man, realizing and admitting to myself and everyone else, yeah, I’m human. It’s taken a toll."

That toll was apparent in 2018 when White competed in the Olympics just months after a horrific crash while training in New Zealand required him to get 62 stitches in his face.

He was training on a 22-foot Olympic superpipe when he lost control during a difficult trick and smacked his face on the edge of the pipe.

“Honestly I was a bit terrified,’’ he recalled on TODAY in 2018. “It’s just like this visual flashing in my head of what happened. I know I can do the trick, but I knew I could do the trick when I crashed."

White later recovered and once again, reached the top of the podium at the Olympics after a disappointing fourth-place finish at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. He will now look to defend his title by qualifying for his fifth Olympics.

He is rounding back into form after taking three years off from competition following the 2018 Olympics. White returned to competition earlier this year with a fourth-place finish and an eighth-place finish in his push to earn a spot on Team USA.

White will be in action this week at the Dew Tour event in Colorado, which is the third of four Olympic qualifying events, according to NBC Olympics. He could all but secure his Olympic spot with a win, and still has another chance with the last qualifying event in California next month or as a selection by a U.S. Ski and Snowboard committee if needed.