Glory for Yuto Totsuka, agony for Scotty James in one of the great Olympic halfpipe finals

LIVIGNO, Italy – Scotty James’ fifth Olympic Games started with a drive into the mountains and quiet walk to the halfpipe. Phone in hand, camera open, venue all to himself, the Australian snowboarder zoomed in and snapped a shot. He wanted to make certain the halfpipe was dead straight, and neither side was slanted.

James is, admittedly, obsessed with the sport. To him, everything matters.

“I genuinely wake up every day thinking about it, (and) go to sleep at night thinking about it,” he said.

Though he could downplay the obvious all he wanted – and, over the years, he certainly had – the one gaping hole on James’ otherwise sterling resume had to gnaw at him, if only a little. He had done everything in the sport but exit the Olympic Games with a gold medal.

Late Friday night at Livigno Snow Park, James clicked into his board atop the halfpipe and stared down a delicious opportunity. The halfpipe venue that he’d once had to himself was now filled. Tension hung in the frigid air. It was the last of 36 runs in the men’s final. He’d dropped a spectacular second run, stretching his arms out as he skidded home, as if to ask the judges, “What more do you want?” Then he pumped his fists and waited for his score.

The result: a 93.50. Agonizingly close, but still trailing leader Yuto Totsuka from Japan.

Thus, James, who entered these Games as the current king of his sport, had one final chance. A raucous crowd grew silent, holding its collective breath. This was Patrick Mahomes with the football in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, Mariano Rivera readying to unleash his cutter in the bottom of the ninth inning of the World Series, Steph Curry launching from 30 feet as time ticked away in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

This was James’ shot at immortality.

He slid and soared. He did so again. And again.

By the end of his run, all that separated James from gold was one final jump, a backside double cork 1620, a trick so devastatingly difficult that James said it’s never been completed in Olympic competition.

All he had to do was land it. Instead, he skidded as his board landed on the side of the pipe.

“It was mine to win there,” he said.

James offered no regret at unleashing such a challenging move to cap his final run – he wanted to decide his Olympic fate, not the judges. He knew if he landed the backside double cork 1620, there’d be no debate, no discussion. The gold would’ve been his.

“I can live with (the fact that) I’ve got an Olympic medal,” James said. “I’m very proud of that. I can go to bed at night knowing I didn’t win because of me.”

Totsuka’s 95.00 would win gold by just a point and a half. James settled for a second-straight silver. Japan’s Ryusei Yamada won bronze.

No boarder inside the top five should feel disappointed. This was, several said, quite possibly the deepest and most competitive halfpipe final in Olympic history. The best in the world kept throwing haymakers at one another, run after run.

“That was the craziest snowboard halfpipe event to have ever happened,” said 27-year-old American Jake Pates, who revved the crowd with the opening run of the night, a 77.50 that earned him an eighth-place finish. “I’ve never ridden that good in my life.”

“Every landed run tonight probably would’ve had the ability to win at some (Olympics) in history,” added another American, Chase Josey, whose second-run score of 70.25 earned him an 11th-place finish. “That’s just a fact. Four years ago, the top five runs (tonight) would have won.”

Four riders – Totsuka, James, Yamada and Ruka Hirano of Japan – all notched runs of 90 or better.

“Regardless of the color of the medal, I got to ride in one of the hardest halfpipe finals ever,” James said.

Before meeting with reporters, the third American and top U.S. qualifier, 17-year-old Alessandro Barbieri, had to wipe tears from his eyes. Then he pulled out his phone, and like James had over a week ago, snapped a photo of the empty halfpipe. Barbieri wanted to savor Friday night for a different reason: the pain it brought him.

“Being in Italy, I wanted to do well, in front of the Italian crowd and, you know, for my family heritage,” he said. Barbieri is a first-generation American, the son of two Italians immigrants. It was five years ago – the moment these 2026 Olympic Games were awarded to northern Italy – that he decided he was competing here. At the time, he was 12.

“I have to be at the Olympics no matter what,” he told himself.

“(It) was meant to be,” Barbieri said earlier this week. “I’ve been dreaming of this since I was little.”

That is why Friday hurt as much as it did. An opening run of 75.00 held up as Barbieri’s best of the night; his last two runs ended with a crash. The emotions coursed through him afterwards. He so badly wanted to shine here.

“I’ll remember this as a painful day, but I’ll move forward,” he said. Then he quoted Dory from “Finding Nemo.” “I’ll just keep swimming.”

Asked about his own emotions after the final, James paused. The 31-year-old said he was numb.

Slowly, perspective started to seep in, however. He’s already an icon in the sport, with four World Cup titles and eight Winter X Games titles to his name.

“I didn’t start this because of potentially winning an Olympic medal,” he said. “I did it because it’s my passion and my life, and that doesn’t change.”

His plan for Saturday? Wake his one-year-old son, Leo, and drape the new medal around his neck. “He won’t even know what it is,” James said, laughing. Next time the Olympics roll around, he might. James shot down any notion that this would be his last Games. He intends to land in France in 2030 and chase what still eludes him.

“I’m gonna be that bad smell for four years,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.