After a narrow Olympic loss, snowboarder Scotty James looks toward 2030

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Scotty James was right. The sun did, in fact, rise Saturday morning, even if it was snowing hard at the halfpipe where he came oh-so-close to living out his Olympic dream the night before.

The Aussie snowboarder spent a lifetime trying to reach this moment. When his moment came, he came an agonizing half-turn short of winning the Olympic gold medal that has eluded him. He said he has every intention of staying in the sport, likely for another run at the gold four years from now.

For now, though, a chance to process what just happened. For an athlete who left home and moved to America at age 12 to see just how far he could go in this sport, a second silver medal was nothing to be ashamed of. That's why, in the aftermath, some smiles broke through the inevitable tears.

“It's OK to be upset, it's all right to cry. It's OK to get frustrated, and it's OK to not achieve exactly what you want,” said the 31-year-old James. “Because tomorrow the sun will rise, I'll give the medal to my son, he won't even know what it is, but it'll be a proud moment to give it to him.”

As his documentary that dropped earlier this winter showed, James has it all. He lives in Monaco, has a wife who's the daughter of a billionaire. His son, Leo, is closing in on 18 months old.

That gold medal was, however, the one thing missing — the “elephant in the room" he called it.

It's why the tears flowed freely from the eyes of his mother, Celia, and why his father, Phil, said the evening left him feeling proud, but “a bit flat.”

“I don’t think people really get the work they put in," Celia James said. "All these guys, but if you’re from Australia, you’re away from home a lot from a very young age. I think today is probably a day he thought was going to be a day that was the gold, the reward for it all. And silver is good, but I just think for him, it’s not going to be the reward he wanted.”

James admitted as much.

He'll be 35 at the next Olympics. Japan, which placed four riders among the top seven in Friday's contest, including the man who won, 24-year-old Yuto Totsuka, will only get better and deeper.

In many ways, those riders from Japan have turned these halfpipe contests into an aerial show. They are tremendous snowboarders doing amazing things. James has always been more into the soul of the sport, feeling a really difficult spin or a great grab of the board means as much, or more, than a triple cork.

In his mind, it's a fight worth fighting while he's still healthy and still waking up every day thinking about what else might be possible on that 5-foot-long piece of wood and fiberglass.

Someone asked him: “What is Scotty James' ‘Why?’”

He dissolved into tears, and spoke about his family, friends and support staff that have followed him around the world, pursuing his dream.

“It's a loaded question," he said. “My ‘why’ would be, I want to leave my footprint on the sport, but also the industry. That's sometihng I strive for every day. It's what I get up for. I'm up there for myself and what I can accomplish in the halfpipe. But also to share that with the people who support me.”

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics