Thread by @nytimes

For some extreme Olympic sports — halfpipe, slopestyle, big air — there is no limit to the imagination. They can fly as high as they want. Winning means doing tricks that no one else can do. Or wants to do.

They live in fear of the next new trick. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Just keeping up gets harder every Olympic cycle. The tricks get higher, bigger, twistier — more dangerous. Performances that won medals at past Olympics might not even qualify this time. Time weeds out those who do not evolve, who cannot keep up. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Shaun White, 35, is heading to his fifth Olympics. He has to be doing tricks much more difficult and dangerous than he performed when he won gold medals in 2006, 2010 and 2018. It is a cruel trick of reverse-aging — getting better while getting older. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Among the younger stars hoping to surpass a field that includes Shaun White in Beijing is André Höflich, a 24-year-old from Germany. Höflich spent the winter working on a routine of halfpipe tricks that he hopes will impress the Olympic judges. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Höflich is trying to add a trick that only three others in the world can do: a cab double cork 1260. He starts backward, does two flips and three-and-a-half spins and lands backward again. The thought of landing on his head haunts him. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Some of the Winter Olympics’ most decorated athletes talked to us about the dangers and fears of pushing past their comfort zones on these new tricks. “It’s something we deal with on the daily,” Shaun White said. nyti.ms/34jYcNK