Ayumu Hirano deserved the gold medal twice over in the men’s halfpipe at the Beijing Olympics after earning a perplexingly low score on his second run.
On Friday in Beijing, in the final of the men’s halfpipe, two-time Olympic silver medalist Hirano was vying for his first gold in the event. Hirano was trailing Australian Scotty James’s score of 92.50 heading into his second run, and it seemed as if the Japanese snowboarder put down an all-timer of a run after pulling off a triple cork 1440.
