ASPEN, Colo. — After finishing up his all too customary victory lap through the superpipe, Shaun White dropped to the snow and covered his goggles with his gloves as if he couldn’t quite believe what he had just accomplished.

Like there was any doubt. Like there is ever any doubt.

In typical fashion, White made this one look rather easy as he cruised to his sixth straight snowboard superpipe crown at Winter X on Sunday night.

“A pretty humbling title,” said White, who looks different with his shorter hair, but wins just the same as when he had those long, curly red locks. “This is pretty heavy.”

For a while, it looked as if there might not be anyone to really push him. His top rival, Iouri Podladtchikov, dropped out because of the flu.

“I was bummed,” White said. “But he actually texted me, ‘Sorry I couldn’t be there.”’

The snowboarder nicknamed “I-Pod” missed quite a show, especially given the performance of 14-year-old Ayumu Hirano, who became the youngest athlete ever to medal at Winter X when he took silver. Hirano, of Japan, just might be the future of snowboarding — once White relinquishes control, of course. Markus Malin of Finland was third.

These days, White’s biggest competition may just be, well, from himself.

And even his own performances are getting more and more difficult to top. Last year, White earned a perfect 100 on his final run. He tried the same basic combination of tricks this time — even landed them cleaner, he said — and yet scored only 98.

Tough judging, because his second run looked flawless. Then again, his performances usually are. Even his competitors acknowledged as much.