Shaun White is focusing on Sochi. (Harry How/Getty Images)

Shaun White has vacillated about whether to compete in the Winter X Games this week in Aspen or concentrate on the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month.

On Thursday, he made up his mind. After committing to the event earlier in the week, the snowboarder now will skip the X Games, where he was to enter superpipe and slopestyle competition. An eight-time superpipe and five-time slopestyle gold medalist, he had never missed an X Games Aspen event. The news was reported by ESPN.

THIS JUST IN: Shaun White pulls out of X Games Aspen in order to prepare for Winter Olympics.

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 22, 2014

“It’s a tough balance,” White said when committing to Aspen.. “I really want to get a lot of practice in before the Olympics, but I am also much more motivated to give my best run in a competition and I’m excited to go out and do that at X Games.”

White qualified for Sochi in slopestyle, which is making its Olympic debut, and in halfpipe, in which he is the two-time defending Olympic champion.