High Drama In The Halfpipe – IPod Takes Gold & Shaun White Surprisingly Misses The Podium UPDATED WITH ALL THE RUNS

In a down-to-the-wire contest battled as much in the slushy flat-bottom of the olympic pipe as much as it was in the air, Russian-born Iouri Podladtchikov ended up in top of the podium with a solid run fun of style, huge air and big spins. Followed in silver and bronze place by Ayumu Hirano and Taku Huraoka, both from Japan, the big story was there were no Americans in the top-three – much less gold-medal favourite and poster boy Shaun White. 

There were lots of surprises as the contest rolled through qualifiers, semis and then finals. While at first it seemed like the issues with the pipe from earlier in the week might be solved, it eventually became clear that less than ideal temps and a questionable build crew conspired to leave the riders with a slushy, under-vert looking pipe. 
 

Shaun White hits the deck in his first run in the finals

The Canadians gave it their all with Derek Livingston just missing semi-finals with a 10th place qualifier, Crispin Lipscomb a 12th and Brad Martin finished 19th in his heat. While Shaun White and fellow teammate Danny Davis were looking strong coming into the competition, and posted great runs in the qualifiers, both were unable to pull off a perfect run when it counted in the finals – White ended up just missing the podium with a nail-biter finish of 4th place.

You can watch the full replay on CBC here and we'll bring you the highlights runs as soon as we can find the links!

Crispin Lipscomb in the qualifier:
 

Shaun White bails in his first run in the finals:
 

White's last run which landed him in 4th:
 

Ayumu Hirano's Silver medal run:
 

Iouri Podladtchikov's Gold medal run: