Welcome to the 2010 Shaun White Games...

Let's just get right into the meat of it, shall we? Carnage seems to strike a cord with action sports fans so we'll start there. Torah Bright banged her head in pipe practice on Wednesday. Reportedly that's her second concussion in three days. Besides the fact that this just plain sucks, this also means we won't get to see Torah's rumored double-cork 900 in competition. (Torah's the only women who has attempted the famed double-cork.) Let's hope that Roxy's Bright-est star heals up in time for the Vancouver Olympics. As much as we all want an American podium sweep it's no fun if there isn't any competition.

Simon Dumont wins "Most Brutal Crash" of Winter X Games 14 (so-far at least), when he suffered this during practice. What you are looking at there is photographer Chris O'Connell's sequence of Simon's boosty 15-foot double-cork to body-whomp on the lip of the pipe. Simon knocked himself unconscious for a good three minutes, then stood up and walked away. The man apparently-made-of steel was seen out and about later that night at local watering holes, and still plans on competing this weekend.

Athlete's confess that this year's X Games superpipe is one of the "iciest" pipe's any of them have ever ridden, which may account for some of the pipe-mishaps and the fact that you can see your own reflection on the 22 foot walls.

With two of snowboarding's best pipe rider's laid up in hospitals in Salt Lake City the men's pipe contest is ripe for Shaun White's picking. Shaun smoked the competition in tonight's qualifiers and... here's the kicker... he was holding back in a big way, opting to keep his infamous double-McTwelve's under wraps. Going into Saturday evening's finals Shaun sits in his favorite position and has the advantage of dropping last after other pipe finalists including Louie Vito, J.J. Thomas and Luke Mitrani. Surprisingly, Olympian Scotty Lago didn't land either of his qualifying runs and failed to make it into X Games superpipe finals.

The only non-American that got up in the mix was Swiss rider Iouri "iPod" Podladtchikov who displayed his double-corks for the first time this season here in the State's, making sure we know he will be a big threat up in Vancouver. Twinkle-toes Vito came through on his promise to do some "air dancing" here in Aspen with his second run straight-air where he managed an awkward quadruple-shifty-roll-down-the-windows maneuver. He somehow got the grab though, and the judges scored him into tomorrow night's finals over rider's like Danny Kass and Antti Autti.

Shaun's going for a three-peat this year and it's looking like he pretty much has it in the bag. Only a catastrophic mistake on Shaun's part would keep him from the gold, and bottom line is... Shaun doesn't make mistakes.

If you've been following any of the Grand Prix Olympic Qualifiers then you have a pretty good idea of what went down on the ladies snowboard pipe side of things in this afternoon's women's superpipe qual's. With Australia's Torah Bright out of commission this year's Winter X Games girl's pipe comp is shaping up to look like a sixth Grand Prix. Kelly Clark qualified first, home-town hero Gretchen Bleiler second, Elena Hight in third and so-forth. Although Japan's Soko Yamaoka was able to sneak into Saturday's finals in the sixth spot.

Sarah Burke barely squeaked through Wednesday night's women's ski superpipe qualifiers, actually edging out Grete Eliassen who was knocked off the bubble when Burke dropped for her last qualifying run. Burke made it into Friday night's finals along with Megan (young) Gunning, Jen Hudak, Rosalind Groenewood, Anais Caradeux and Mirjam Jaeger.

There was an "OMG" moment at the men's ski slopestyle qualifiers when defending champ TJ Schiller couldn't put it down on any of his three qualification runs, taking himself out of the game and leaving the doors wide open for top qualifiers Andreas Hatveit, Sammy Carlson, Bobby Brown, Jossi Wells and Tom Wallisch. All the hype falls onto the shoulders of the Kiwi freeskier, Jossi, who just won the last stop of the Dew Tour and is fighting through knee-pain to put on a show for the fans. Tune in Saturday afternoon for the Men's Ski Slopestyle finals.


Tom Wallisch dials it in for men's ski slope practice

The only actual "Finals" competition, where medals were actually handed out, was for the women's ski slopestyle. Defending champ Anna Segal shook things up when she pulled out of the women's finals just minutes before competition. "I've been off skis for two and a half weeks and this [massive X Games slopestyle course] is not the place to get back on them." That move couldn't have favored Kaya Turski more. Kaya has won virtually every other contest besides Winter X Games. She wanted that X Games gold medal bad and she got it. Breckenridge's Keri Herman took second and Grete Eliassen rounded out third.


Oakley's Sammy Carlson finally get's to un-virgin the virgin drinks. Legally at least. Welcome to club 21 Sammy.

On the party front Oakley and Red Bull came out ahead of the game, kicking off the week by meshing all of the various X Games athletes with media and industry people and serving up sushi combined with free booze. All the star athletes were out, in fact, I'm pretty sure I saw Tanner Hall explaining his Rastafarian beliefs to Danny Kass over some California rolls. And rumor has it Shaun White's red hair even made an appearance after being kept concealed under an oversized black "dreadlocks-beanie" for the majority of the week. Can't blame the guy for trying to go incognito though. He is more famous then Obama around these parts.

Check back tomorrow for some more one-sided opinions about what's really going down here at the 14th annual Winter X Games in Assspen. (Insert "Dumb and Dumber" cliched movie quote about women flocking and beer flowing like wine here)

Mantle Image Courtesy of Nate Abbott/Shazamm/ESPN Images 2009