Hirano wins halfpipe gold with emphatic final run

On of the most highly-anticipated events of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games took to the slopes of Genting Snow Park on Friday morning, where a titanic battle between Ayumu Hirano of Japan and Australia’s Scotty James saw Hirano stomp an near-perfect final run to vault over the Australian and into gold medal position in what will no-doubt go down as one of the most memorable competitions in snowboard history.

The various storylines were raging like wildfire ahead of Friday’s competition, from anticipation for the imminent final runs of competitive snowboarding’s greatest-of-all-time Shaun White (USA), to the onslaught of triple corks expected of several of the riders, to what the judges would be looking for and rewarding in an event that has gotten so technical and so progressive since the last Olympic Winter Games that even the most minor of bobbles could be the difference between glory and heartbreak.

Nowhere was this last point more apparent then in Ayumu Hirano’s second run, where, despite launching a triple-cork 1440 nearly six meters out of the pipe on his first hit and stomping the rest of his run, the winner of halfpipe silver at the previous two Games ended up sitting in second place behind James heading into the third and final run, earning a score of 91.75 to James’ 92.50.

Dropping just before Hirano, James had put down an exceptionally technical run, going big, spinning all four ways and locking in his grabs on every trick. Beginning with one of halfpipe snowboarding’s hardest tricks in the switch backside 1260 Weddle, James then went into a cab double cork 1440 melon – making for the first time ever that that combo had been completed back-to-back – followed by a frontside 900 tail grab, then a backside double cork 1260 melon before finishing things off with a frontside double cork 1440 tailgrab to land in the lead.

Not one to show much in the way of emotion at any point in his career, Hirano took in his second run second-place score stone-faced from the finish area.

However, it was clear from the drop-in of his third and final attempt that a fire in Hirano had been lit, and the Japanese rider proceeded to simply destroy the Beijing 2022 pipe in his gold medal-winning run.

Leading off once again with the triple cork 1440 truck driver – but bigger, better grabbed, and cleaner – Hirano then launched straight into an even bigger cab double cork 1440 Weddle, following that up with a frontside double cork 1260 indy, then a backside double cork 1260 Weddle, before putting exclamation mark on things with a massive frontside double cork 1440 tailgrab.