The Best of the Best...

VANCOUVER — Shaun White once again proved that there are 2 types of snowboarding: snowboarding and Shaun White's snowboarding.
He won his second men's Olympic halfpipe gold medal a run that finals that was much faster, better and higher than his competitors'.
"I knew that I had it in me," were his words after that run. "It felt good."
His artistic display of the tricks was the cherry on top of the gold medal. In his second run he was even faster. His rockin' combo was super-sized Double McTwist 1260, with 2 backflips with 3 and a half rotations of his board.
That run was a 48.4, his highest in an Olympics. The silver medalist Peetu Piironen from Finland was way below White's first try - 46,4. The bronze medalist is the american Scotty Lago.
"His bone, body, brain and synapses make him who he is," White's coach, Bud Keene, said recently. "But there are a lot of natural athletes. What sets him apart is his extreme commitment to training, to perfection. He has an uncompromising attitude toward his efforts. He works harder than anyone, and he's the most talented. That's a hell of a package."
White's second Olympic gold medal is the continuation of an improbable life journey that began with open-heart surgery as an infant followed by instant bonding with surfing. At 7, he picked up snowboarding because his mother was frightened by his wild skiing.
"From the very beginning," he said, "it was like this contest setting, and I wanted to be the best."
But the burden of competition was tough on his family, which often slept in its crowded van in ski resort parking lots because they couldn't afford a room.
When the family of five could squeeze into a single room, they cooked meals on a single electric hot plate. "If the security guards came around, a couple of us would have to hide out," he recalled.
In his moment of 2010 triumph, his entire family was with him at the halfpipe, something that was not possible in 2006. Even his dog, Rambo, got to come.
Rambo could fly first-class, too. White is one of the most well-known athletes in the world, making more than $9 million a year. Business Week magazine ranked him as 51st in its list of the 100 most-powerful athletes.
At 23, he's not old enough to rent a car, but he owns a Lamborghini.
When he wanted to work on his new "double-cork" tricks, energy drink sponsor Red Bull built him a million-dollar halfpipe deep in the Colorado Rockies, far from the eyes of his competitors.
After honing his skills, he went to New Zealand to practice before the Olympics, something he and coach Keene did before his 2006 win.
There, his competitive spirit kicked in and his secret tricks were revealed. It didn't matter that his rivals knew what was up his sleeve.
He won four of the five Olympic qualifiers, then took X Games gold in January less than an hour after crashing hard in a practice run.
"I can't really describe a trick as much as I just feel it," White said.
Wednesday night, the whole world was feeling it.