One of Shaun White's stiffest competitors for another Olympic gold medal took a nasty fall Sunday night in the Winter X Games superpipe in Aspen that sent him to the hospital and left him with a broken nose.

Iouri Podladtchikov, better known as I-Pod, the 2014 Olympic superpipe champion from Switzerland, slammed his face against the halfpipe while attempting a 1260-degree flip at the end of a run. His legs crumpled upon re-entry and his head smacked the lower part of the halfpipe wall, leaving him motionless at the bottom of the through of the pipe. 

After medical personnel rushed to a motionless  Podladtchikov, they took about 20 minutes to stabilize Podladtchikov's neck and strap him into a sled to be taken to Aspen Valley Hospital. In a statement, the X Games said CT scans were negative for a brain or neck injury but that Podladtchikov suffered a nasal fracture.

Eighth-place finisher Jake Pates, the rider to follow  Podladtchikov after competition continued, told the Associated Press that it was hard to continue after seeing such a bad fall. 

"It was terrible. You don't really know how he's doing," Pates said. "He wasn't moving, there was a crowd of people around him. You can't help but feel for him. Definitely gets your stomach turned, gets you in a weird head space."  

White, meanwhile, was back home in California watching on TV, after pulling out of the Winter X Games earlier in the week while battling the flu. He was practicing in Aspen last week, according to The Aspen Times, but opted to pull out of the contest to rest up before leaving for PyeongChang on Februay 3. The Olympic Games begin with the Opening Ceremony on February 9.

White is an eight-time X Games champion in the halfpipe, but his focus this season has been on the Olympics. 

The two-time Olympic medalist almost saw his shot at a fourth Olympics wiped out when he crashed on a 22-foot superpipe in New Zealand during an October training session. The accident forced White to get 62 stitches in his face and even consider retirement, but it didn't prevent him from, three months later, clinching a return to the Olympics with a perfect 100-point qualifying run at the U.S. Grand Prix in Snowmass, Colo.  

Japan's Ayumu Hirano, the 2014 Olympic silver medalist who is also a serious threat for gold, won Sunday night's contest after stomping back-to-back 1440-degree spins to clinch a winning score of 99. For reference, I-Pod was the first rider to ever complete a 1440 -- known as the Yolo Flip -- in a contest ahead of the 2014 Sochi Games.