Snowboarding, at its very core, is not about time. It's about the absence of time, the defiance of a clock. It's about the clash between will and gravity. Perhaps that is why Olympic snowboarder Louie Vito is allowed to play loosely with the definitions of time elements.

"It's nice to be home for a second," the Sandy resident said Tuesday, sitting in a downtown Salt Lake coffee shop.

A second. As in, two weeks.

That's a fleeting amount of time to recoup from last month's X Games and compete in this week's Dew Tour Toyota Championships at Snowbasin, the four-day ski and snowboard competition that starts Thursday.

Time flies, and so does Vito. After the Vancouver Games a year ago, it was to Europe, then New Zealand, sliding on a waxed board through a giant halfpipe at each stop. This week, work brings him back to Utah, his home since he graduated from high school in Ohio in 2006. He won Dew Tour stops in Killington, Vt., and Breckenridge, Colo., this season. He will win the Dew Cup, awarded to the rider with the highest season point total, assuming he finishes no lower than seventh in Saturday's final.

Despite his success, Vito's mainstream fame may stem more from his 2009 turn as a contestant on "Dancing With The Stars." Even more than riding at the Olympics last year, where he finished fifth in the halfpipe — Shaun White won. Last month he earned a spot on the X Games' podium for the first time, finishing third —Shaun White won.

Vito isn't necessarily viewed within snowboarding as the next great rider.

"I wouldn't say he's the second coming of Shaun or anything," 28-year-old veteran Steve Fisher said. "I don't think anybody would say that."

But Vito has certainly been on a roll this year, and sometimes that's all it takes. "He's been hot," Fisher acknowledged.

Despite his relative youth, Vito has watched the sport change and grow, from under the radar to mainstream. Now he sees people who are younger than he is coming up, reshaping and redefining the sport.

"Sometimes it feels like you've been in the game for a minute," he said.

A minute. As in, forever.

But Vito is hardly an old man in a sport designed for the young. He is three years younger than White and has no plans of going anywhere. He has already targeted the 2014 Olympics. He feeds off the energy of the Olympics, the attention.

"The Olympic year is nice, because you know the whole world is watching," Vito said. "Even people who are ice skating fans are watching snowboarding."

Vito wears two rings on three fingers. On his right hand, a white gold ring from the Olympics commemorating his participation in the halfpipe. On his left, a diamond-studded bar with two finger holes. He said it makes it difficult to pick up cups with that hand, and that it sort of hurts to make a fist.

So why wear it?

He smiled.

"Because you look down and it's just diamonds all across your hand," he said.

The rings aren't just vanity, he said. They push him. They're a reminder. "You keep doing good," he tells himself, "you can buy more jewelry."

The goodness has been flowing for Vito. He picked up Toyota as a sponsor this year, which paired with Nike 6.0 gives Vito affiliations with some of the biggest named companies in action sports.

Dew Tour lacks the competition of the Olympics, or even the X Games. White isn't in the field. Vito doesn't purport that winning this week makes him the favorite for a gold medal in Sochi.

It would, however, prove something, he said: "It definitely shows a consistency, I would say."

He paused for a second — as in a finger snap, rather than a Vitosecond.

"It's good to be consistent," he said.

And that takes time.

boram@sltrib.com

Twitter: @oramb —

Louie Vito

Who • Professional snowboarder and Sandy resident

Age • 22

Career highlights • Third place 2011 X Games; third at 2010 Winter Euro X Games; fifth place at Vancouver Olympics. —

Winter Dew Tour Toyota Championships

A four-day ski and snowboard competition that starts Thursday at Snowbasin and is the final stop of a three-contest tour. The event shows off some of the world's best athletes in both superpipe and slopestyle skiing and snowboarding. Louie Vito has won the snowboarding superpipe in previous stops at Killington and Breckenridge.