Shaun White slams face, wins X Games SuperPipe gold, gets us psyched for Vancouver

I’m not gonna pretend that I knew what a Double McTwist 1260 was until Friday night, or even that I could properly describe it to you now. But after watching snowboarder Shaun White muscle one out in his gold medal-winning run at Winter X Games 14 — an hour after he slammed his face into the lip of the pipe attempting the move in practice — I suddenly cannot wait to see him throw it again in Vancouver. Below, the clip of his run and the crash. I wish I could find the footage ESPN played of White watching the wreck. After the proper amount of “Whoa!”ing at the sight of his head snapping back and his helmet flying off, one of the people sitting with him joked that they knew he was okay because he did a hair flip. He noted that his hair did look good. The announcers, meanwhile, told us why we should actually be impressed: a reigning Olympic gold medalist headed to Vancouver in two weeks doesn’t need to risk doing that trick or competing at all after that. But was there any question that a man who had Red Bull, one of his sponsors, build him a top-secret halfpipe in the Colorado backcountry only accessible by helicopter, would be crazy/competitive enough to go for it?

White’s private pipe got some screentime during Bob Simon’s profile of him on last night’s 60 Minutes. Shockingly, CBS has yet to put the footage online of Simon looking like he was going to pee himself while riding shotgun in White’s Lamborghini. (In Bob’s defense, Shaun did admit it was his second Lamborghini — he’d wrapped his first one around a tree.) But CBS has put up a bonus clip of White and Tony Hawk jumping over a seated Simon on their skateboards, which is almost as enjoyable. That clip after the jump.

Who’s ready to watch White in Vancouver?