By Matt Houghton, reporting from North Vancouver, BC.

With a score of 46.8 in his first run of the men's halfpipe finals tonight at Cypress Mountain, American mega-star snowboarder Shaun White looked to be a lock for gold. And he was: He held off every competitor right down to the final three riders, when it became mathematically clear that Finn Peetu Pironien would take silver and fellow American Scotty Lago would earn bronze. So with the top podium spot already claimed by White, what did he do? Unlike at the Turin Olympics, when the exact same situation occured and White opted for an easy victory lap, he instead unholstered the big guns. And by "big guns" I'm of course referring to White's now legendary double McTwist 1260 - a trick he had yet to do in competition at Cypress, but spoke of quite openly several days ago at a US pipe team press conference as what would differentiate him from his peers.  

Shaun White, about to claim his second gold.

White's winning run, including his new signature trick, went like this: a massive backside air to a frontside double-cork 1080 to a Cab double-cork 1080. From there he ripped his now customary styled-out frontside 540 and linked it up to the double McTwist 1260. It was exactly what the crowd at Cypress wanted to see, and White delivered it. He also upped his score by two points, beating Peetu's score of 45.0 and Lago's first run score of 42.8.  

Canada's hopes for success wound up resting on the shoulders of 33 year-old Justin Lamouruex. As the oldest rider competing today at Cypress, Lamoureux actually earned the highest ever result of a Canadian in Olympic halfpipe: a very respectable seventh place. This is a significant step above his 21st place result in Turin, and one-ups Mike Michalchuck's result of eighth back in the ‘98 Nagano Olympics. All three Canadian riders - Lamoureux, Jeff Batchelor and Brad Martin - struggled in qualifiers, particularly in their first runs when all three of them fell. Batchelor fell again on this second run, while Martin and Lamoureux both pulled through with relatively clean runs. Martin's second score was too low to advance to the semi-finals, but Lamoureux squeaked in as the last rider to qualify. From there he battled through the semi-finals to make the finals.  

A clean Method from Batchelor.

Other stand-outs today included Louie Vito, Kazuhiro Kokubo and Iouri "Ipod" Podladtchikov - all three came very close to the podium thanks to strong, technical runs. Kokubo in particular was a crowd favourite, with his ridiculous amplitude and clean style. His runs included an epic chicken wing-style McTwist  on his second hit, at least 18 feet out of the pipe. If he hadn't sketched the landing of the double-cork on his last hit, he likley would've scored higher than Lago and claimed the bronze. Likewise for Vito and Ipod, both of whom had near-flawless runs that just couldn't creep past Lago's score. Frenchman Mathieu Crepel also rode very well; he landed consistent double-corks (and had a sweet moustache marker-ed onto his upper lip), but was deducted points for not landing as cleanly as he could have.  

Lamoureux makes Canada proud with a seventh place finish.

The crowd at Cypress was stoked in spite of the music and announcing volume being dropped during the finals (perhaps for broadcasting purposes?), which put an unfortunate damper on the overall vibe in the stands. Or perhaps it was simply due to the inherent politeness of Canadians being Canadian? Either way, it felt like the overall event should have been livlier; I mean, this is snowboarding for goodness' sake! Maybe the cold cans of Canadian should have been sold by venders in the stands, as opposed to spectators being forced to join the massive line-ups at the food and beverage concessions.  

Women's halfpipe goes down tomorrow, with much speculation around Australian Torah Bright's rumoured double-corks. If she lands one - among her already impressive arsenal of skate-style tricks - there's little doubt she'll take the gold. But you can count on American heavy-hitters Kelly Clark and Gretchen Bleiller having something to say about it. Check back to Push.ca for the full scoop