The men's halfpipe competition in

snowboarding Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympi ...

at the

2022 Beijing Winter Olympics The 2022 Winter Olympics (2022年冬季奥林匹克运动会), officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), was an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beij ...

was held on 9 February (qualification) and 11 February (final), at the

Genting Snow Park The then Beijing Olympic Games Bidding Committee unveiled the venue layout plan for the 2022 Winter Olympics on 20 February 2014:the plan was include the five ice events at the Olympic Green, the Capital Indoor Stadium and the Wukesong Sports Cen ...

Zhangjiakou Zhangjiakou (; ; ) also known as Kalgan and by several other names, is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hebei province in Northern China, bordering Beijing to the southeast, Inner Mongolia to the north and west, and Shanxi to the southw ...

Ayumu Hirano is a Japanese Olympic champion and three-time Olympic medalist snowboarder and Olympic skateboarder. He won the silver medal in the superpipe in 2013 Winter X Games XVII at the age of 14, becoming the youngest medalist in X Games history, and wo ...

of Japan, the 2014 and 2018 silver medalist, won the gold, his third Olympic medal. Scotty James of Australia improved from the 2018 bronze to the 2022 silver. Jan Scherrer of Switzerland won the bronze, his first Olympic medal. The field also included the defending champion, Shaun White, who won this event in 2006, 2010, and 2018. This was White's last Olympics as he announced his upcoming retirement before the games began. White qualified for the finals where he finished fourth, repeating his 2014 performance. At the

2021–22 FIS Snowboard World Cup The 2020–21 FIS Snowboard World Cup is the 28th World Cup season in snowboarding organised by International Ski Federation. The season started on 23 October 2021 and will conclude on 27 March 2022. Competitions consist of parallel slalom, parall ...

, only three halfpipe events were held before the Olympics. Ayumu Hirano was leading the ranking, followed by

Ruka Hirano Ruka Hirano (born 12 March 2002) is a Japanese snowboarder Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet ...

and Scherrer.

Yūto Totsuka is a Japanese snowboarder who competed in the men's halfpipe at the 2018 Winter Olympics. He finished 11th overall. He fell during the final, hitting the edge of the halfpipe and injuring his hip, and had to be evacuated by medics. Totsuka took ...

was the 2021 world champion, with James and Scherrer being the silver and bronze medalists, respectively. James was also the 2022 X-Games winner in super-pipe, ahead of Ayumu Hirano and Kaishu Hirano.

Qualification

A total of 25 snowboarders qualified to compete at the games. For an athlete to compete they must have a minimum of 50.00 FIS points on the FIS Points List on January 17, 2022 and a top 30 finish in a World Cup event or at the FIS Snowboard World Championships 2021. A country could enter a maximum of four athletes into the event.

Results

Qualification

: Q — Qualified for the Final The top 12 athletes in the qualifiers move on to the medal round.

Final

Controversy

During Ayumu Hirano's second finals run, he completed a "spectacular frontside triple cork to become the first person ever to land the trick at an Olympics." NBC commentator Todd Richards, a former snowboarder, immediately announced that "no one will touch that run tonight... that is going to be a 98." He would go on to add, "He destroyed this halfpipe. That run was something that we may never see again from anyone else. Unbelievable. Level raised. By such a large margin. They are going to give him a score that is going to be just out of this world." However, judges scored the run a 91.75, leaving him in second behind Scotty James. Immediately on-air, NBC's Richards blasted the judges, proclaiming “Ahhh what? What? Is there a mistake? There’s no way, there is no way. A 91.75? ...as far as I’m concerned, the judges just grenaded all their credibility." He went on to add, "It's unbelievable that this is even happening. It's a travesty to be completely honest with you. I am irate right now. Someone call the authorities, there’s been a robbery." People online began to dub this controversy "triple-gate".

X games The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...

silver medalist

Nikko Landeros Nikko Landeros (born April 28, 1989) is an ice sled hockey player and paralympic freestyle skier from the United States. He took part in the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, where USA won gold. They beat Japan 2–0 in the final. He was ...

tweeted that Hirano "just got robbed... this should never happen in the Olympics... what a disgrace." Ultimately, Hirano secured the gold medal on his third run by scoring a 96.00 by performing a triple cork and a 1440.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snowboarding at the 2022 Winter Olympics - Men's halfpipe Men's snowboarding at the 2022 Winter Olympics