Ayumu Hirano

Japanese snowboarder Ayumu Hirano, who won gold in the 2022 Olympics men’s halfpipe competition is now speaking out against the process that nearly let him down in a huge way and led to a judging controversy in his event. Hirano wowed the crowd on his second run of the...

Olympics Jerk Watch is a long-running feature that subjectively rates the jerkiness (or lack thereof) of the biggest stars of the Summer and Winter Games. Known for: issuing oddly low scores, issuing oddly high scores, angering the Todds. Why they might be jerks: On Friday morning in Beijing, Japanese snowboarder...

Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button and online; listen on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Sounds; live text and highlights on BBC Sport website and mobile app. Shaun White's glittering snowboarding career came to an end without a medal in Beijing as Japan's Ayumu Hirano finally won Olympic halfpipe gold.

Shaun White’s legendary snowboarding career is over. The 35-year-old placed fourth in the Olympic men’s halfpipe on Thursday, his final competition in the sport. Ayumu Hirano of Japan, who won silver at the last two Olympics, came away with gold and Scotty James of Australia took silver in a controversial finish.

Shaun White finished fourth in his final snowboard contest at the men's halfpipe Friday morning at the Beijing Olympics, capping a 20-year career that spanned five Olympics while amassing a contest record that might never be eclipsed. Japan's Ayumu Hirano, a two-time Olympic silver medalist, took gold by landing the...

ZHANGJIAKOU, China (AP) — 3-time halfpipe champion Shaun White finishes 4th in his final Olympics; Ayumu Hirano of Japan wins gold.

Scotty James has won Australia’s third medal of the Winter Olympics, taking silver in an epic men’s halfpipe final on Friday. Japanese star Ayumu Hirano pulled out a stunning final run of the event to steal the gold from the Aussie. After a fall in his first run,...

Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Snowboard legend Shaun White finished his Olympic career in Beijing on Friday just off the men's halfpipe podium as Japan's Ayumu Hirano took the gold. The three-time Olympic gold medalist, who announced his intentions to retire after the Games, ended his historic Olympic career with a fourth-place finish following three turns down the 220-meter Secret Garden Olympic Halfpipe.

Japanese snowboarder Ayumu Hirano thought he had vaulted himself to the top of the leaderboard with his second run in the men’s halfpipe competition, but when the judges left him in second place with a controversial score, he took matters into his own hands in the third and final time down the hill.

Shaun White’s Olympic career is over. But the three-time gold medalist who popularized men’s snowboarding to the masses leaves is passing the torch to a worthy successor. The sport’s latest star, Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, has garnered plenty of headlines at the 2022 Winter Olympics and captured the attention of a new generation of fans.

The 2022 Olympics almost had yet another controversy on their hands in the men’s snowboarding halfpipe final, as many — including (and perhaps especially) NBC broadcaster Todd Richards — thought eventual gold medalist Ayumu Hirano was robbed by the judges on his immaculate second run. After falling...

The spirit of Shaun White’s snowboarding lives on in Ayumu Hirano, a halfpipe heritage laid out before his very eyes in Beijing.Trick progression is all that matters on the pipe and the 35-year-old has set the standard since 2006, when he became the first man to land back-to-back 1080s.Four years later came the ‘Tomahawk’ 1260, then the double cork 1440 that earned him a third Olympic gold medal at PyeongChang 2018.White let the genie out of the bottle and this time, he was left to wonder at the state of the game as Hirano took gold with the first-ever triple...

For the second time in a week, judging controversy became the central narrative of an Olympic men’s snowboarding final. This time, however, the judges got—and, thankfully, took—a chance to correct it. First, it was the men’s slopestyle final on Sunday night, where Max Parrot took gold off...

ZHANGJIAKOU, China (AP) — Shaun White had a front-row seat to what the next generation can do after he pushed the limits of snowboarding for more than a decade. In White’s farewell performance on Friday, Ayumu Hirano of Japan won an elusive Olympic gold in the halfpipe with a boundary-pushing run of his own.