Shaun White Fails to Qualify

Winter X-Games 15 is underway and today we saw the qualifing round for mens snowboarding slopestyle.  Favored Shaun White failed to make the final round in over a decade.  Shaun put together some decent first two runs but was rewarded with a low score.  For his final run, he barely tried at all.  People may wonder why he just 'gave up' in the last round.  When they interviewed Shaun after his run, Shaun went on to say he was just happy to be there and have a great time.  He realizes the competition that he faces and now knows to step his game up.  Regardless of how tough the competition is, shouldn't Shaun still be atleast one of the best?  And what was the reason behind him just throwing away his final run?  Was he not wanting to injure himself for the SuperPipe? Or maybe he was thinking that if he gave it his all, and failed, people would question his snowboard status.