“Turn on the TV, and sure enough, Josie Baff is standing there and won. And watching Cooper [Woods] yesterday … I mean, it’s unbelievable to be a part of that. I was watching them inspired, wanting to do the same.”
But winning gold wasn’t his only objective at Milano Cortina 2026. In his arrival press conference, he also declared that he was there to push his sport forward, and light the way for everyone else who shares his deepest passion.
Scotty James leaves the medal ceremony.Credit: Getty Images
That is what may have cost him.
Four years ago, he was beaten with the final drop-in of the Olympic final. This time, the shoe was on the other foot. As the top qualifier, he had the final drop-in; the platform for the legacy moment he was chasing. There were more Aussies in the crowd than any other nationality, all there to see him deliver. To turn his silver into gold, he needed to better the 95.00 posted by another Japanese phenom, Yuto Totsuka, his long-time rival.
In halfpipe, riders are judged not just on how big and hard their tricks are, but on how many different directions they spin. As Valentino Guseli later explained, Totsuka showed five directions, and James only four; James tried to compensate for his lesser variety with greater difficulty on his final hit.
That was an attempted backside double-cork 1620, a true ‘final boss’ move. But he botched the landing, which meant his best score came from his second run: the only one he completed cleanly, which yielded a 93.50.
Scotty James interacts with Australian fans. Credit: Getty Images
In retrospect, he was perhaps pushing too much. A less-risky 1440, with one fewer half-rotation, which is how he’d finished his previous runs, might have been enough to sneak in front. But he was determined to go large, for himself and for the art of snowboarding.
It was a choice between possibly winning safely, or unquestionably winning spectacularly.
“He shouldn’t … I don’t know,” Guseli said, stopping himself before completing the thought.
Enough isn’t enough for James. He believes he has a higher calling than just Olympic gold. He explicitly chose progression over protection; that’s aggressively Australian behaviour, exhibited by some of our greatest sporting icons. But it is possible to be too ambitious.
“Potentially could have done it with a 14. But for myself, I had to do the 16,” he said.
“My first run, if I landed that, I think the medal would have been a different colour – and then the last run was kind of for me. But it’s hard to look at it like that, because I can’t change the result. We obviously all knew what I was coming here to do – and I wasn’t really thinking about that so much. I was thinking about that last run that I tried to do, and I wasn’t able to land it.
“Coulda, woulda, shoulda … it is what it is. I’ll have to keep pushing it in the future, I guess.”
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The level of the final was phenomenally high. All 12 riders were shooting for the stars, and the tension was ridiculous. Only Ruka Hirano landed three clean runs – 90.00, 90.00 and 90.11 – and he still finished fourth. The top six scores all would have been enough to win silver at Beijing 2022, including from Guseli in fifth.
“It was the craziest show ever,” Guseli said.
For James, the chase goes on.
He says he will go for one more Olympic cycle, and that he still feels strong in body and mind – but anything can happen, and by the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps, he will be 35. At that age, and with the ever-increasing standard of halfpipe snowboarding, it is a huge ask for him to top the podium. It is no certainty that he will ever have a cleaner runway to gold.
After the medal ceremony, James threw his plush toy gift into a section of Aussie fans in the crowd, then jumped over a barrier to embrace them. When he met Australian media some time later, he said he felt numb, and he looked it.
“I don’t really know how to feel,” James said.
“The next 24 hours, I’ll probably have a bit of a cry, but I’ll be happy as well, because representing the country and winning a medal is unbelievable, and I’m really proud of that. I think what I can live with is that I tried my best … that was my aim here, and I was unable to land it.
“And yeah, it’s on me.”
