Livigno: As Scotty James soared for one final shot at an Olympic gold medal, an overhead cable from the broadcast camera that was tracking him snapped above the mixed zone at the end of the halfpipe and came crashing down.
Scotty James in the men’s halfpipe final.Credit: AP
Those underneath it thought something had gone horribly wrong – so wrong, potentially, that the result might have been in question had it come into his peripheral vision.
Fellow Australian snowboarder Valentino Guseli thought someone from above was trying to send Scotty a sign.
“You know what was crazy? Did you see the wire that broke? I thought that that was some kind of omen from the shred gods,” Guseli said.
“He was riding that pipe, he was tearing it apart – like, that was from the shred gods saying, ‘We’re with you Scotty’ while he was in the pipe. It was the craziest thing that’s ever happened.”
Did James notice the cable? And if he did notice the cable, would that have been grounds for a protest?
Guseli reckoned so.
“If he noticed it, that would be enough to mess you up if you’re in a trick,” Guseli said. “When you’re in that trick, he probably didn’t notice it – but if he did, you’d want a re-run, kind of thing.”
As it turned out, James only found out about it when it was raised with him afterwards by media.
“Everyone’s talking about the cable,” he said. “I should blame it on the cable.”
Fundamentally, the result was a case of someone being better than him on the night, and James was not hiding from that.
As Guseli put it: “I guess they [the shred gods] weren’t with him.”
Valentino Guseli in the men’s halfpipe final. Credit: Getty Images
Nor were they with him. Guseli, 20, pulled off a score of 88.00 in his third and final run to finish in fifth – his best effort at this level, continuing his progression, but not yet enough to get on on the dais.
“On the first two runs I sucked, but I landed my last one, and I got one place better than I did at the last Olympics – so we’re going up, which is cool,” he said.
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The pressure of the occasion and the quality of the field made it tricky for him to compete, and to bring out his best self.
If he had more time between the Olympics and the ACL injury he sustained in December 2024, could he have rivalled James and the Japanese for a medal?
“Sure, but that wasn’t the reality, and I did what I could with my reality,” Guseli said.
“I think if I rode better today I would be in a better place – and I definitely think I could have ridden better, but dealing with the pressure of the Olympics, and especially finals, it’s crazy.
“Yesterday, I watched the girls and was surprised with how many crashes there were – stuff that I’ve seen these girls do really consistently and then on that night they couldn’t really get it. And then, today, I understood why.
“That kind of finals pressure in the Olympics is massive, and I think everyone felt it a little bit. I think Yuto managed to feel it the least and put down the best run, which is great for him, and unfortunately for Scotty, didn’t get the W [win] that everyone was expecting and hoping for. But it might keep him in the sport a bit longer.”
Guseli couldn’t say if the nerves he felt in Livigno were different to the nerves he felt as a 16-year-old at Beijing in 2022. What he did know was that jagging a medal was within his current capabilities had he executed. And he didn’t do that.
“I knew that today, I definitely was going for gold a lot more than four years ago. I didn’t have much experience back then … going into it I believed that if I did my best snowboarding, that I could have won,” Guseli said.
“I still believe if I did my best snowboarding, I could have won. But I just didn’t. That’s the nature of the game. Sucks to suck, I guess. But it doesn’t really – that’s life.”