by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 06, 2010

You remember Shaun White. He's the long-haired redheaded snowboarder that NBC loved to feature in their coverage of the Olympics. He's also a professional skateboarder, so he'd already learned some fancy moves. But he shocked the world in the 2010 Olympics when he performed the Double McTwist 1260.

It's an amazing snowboarding trick which had never been performed until February of 2010. It involves doing two complete flips - head over heels - while simultaneously twisting the body around in three and a half twists. The name comes because a complete twist is 360 degrees. Performing that 360-degree twist three and a half times gives you 1260 degrees!

The name McTwist actually goes back to 1984, for a move that was invented by a San Diego skate shop owner named Mike McGill. McGill did two twists on the skateboard, which Tony Hawk later expanded to three. But Shaun White's three-and-and-half twists basically doubles the number performed by McGill - making the move into a Double McTwist. McGill is very enthusiastic that White uses McGill's original name to describe the trick, according to one news article. And since both skaters had lived in San Diego, the two have actually become friends.

The Double McTwist 1260 earned White the highest score ever awarded to an Olympic snowboarder, beating the previous record in 2006 set by... Shaun White. And what's spectacular is he'd already won the gold medal before even performing the amazing trick. White had already scored the highest rating in the Half Pipe Final competition, even before it was his turn for the final snowboarding run. Not only did he perform the run anyways - but he performed a snowboarding trick which the world had never seen.

White's final score was 48.4 points out of a possible 50, and his trick set a record that may be hard to beat. But there may be a new name for the trick soon, since Shaun White wants people to start calling it "the Tomahawk." That's a personal joke for the 23-year-old snowboarder, based on a meal he ate four years ago in Aspen, Colorado. At the 2006 Olympic Games, he'd ordered an enormous steak, which weighed in more than 30 ounces. White proudly tells CBS News that "It was massive," and then describes yet another proud accomplishment in his career.

"Finished it."

And now he'd like the Double McTwist 1260 to be known as "The Tomahawk."

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