text: KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Shaun White stood at the top of the halfpipe, the last contestant of the competition, needing a near-perfect run to capture his third consecutive gold medal at the Winter Olympics. He has built an empire on such moments. 
   
   It felt too perfect, too scripted, even by the standards of storytelling that White has inspired. The crowd hushed in anticipation of another command performance. 
   
   White sped down the hill and crested the leading edge of the massive halfpipe and began what was sure to be a monumental run. And that is when it happened — a hard landing here, a gasp-inducing bobble there, the dominance of the world’s greatest halfpipe snowboarder slipping away with each diagonal weave downhill. 
   
   White ended up in fourth, a placing probably higher than he deserved, ceding the Olympic throne to someone else for the first time since 2002. 
   
   “For me to be remembered in the sport, I don’t think tonight makes or breaks my career,” White said. “I’ve been snowboarding for so long, and I love it so much, that I’m happy to take this for what it is and move on and continue to ride.” 
   
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   It was Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland — I-Pod to his friends — who won the gold medal by doing a trick and a run that White and the others could not match. 
   
   “It really felt like there was no fighting at all,” Podladtchikov said. “It felt like it was all meant to be. It’s really weird.” 
   
   More than anything, the night felt like the edge of a new era. Ayumu Hirano, a 15-year-old from Japan, won the silver medal, and his countryman Taku Hiraoka won bronze. For the first time since the halfpipe was added to the Olympics in 1998, there were no Americans on the podium. 
   
   Four Americans were in the 40-man field, and three of them advanced to the 12-man final. But Greg Bretz and Danny Davis, two of the snowboarders who had previously beaten White in a halfpipe competition, each fell on both of their runs. Davis finished 10th, Bretz 12th. 
   
   “I hate not landing two runs,” Davis said. “Especially in this event, with such a big crowd and the amount of media here. But, back to normal life, man.” 
   
   Davis called White’s fourth-place score “a gift” from the judges, and said the result was good for the sport. 
   
   “The world knows now that there’s other snowboarders beside Shaun,” Davis said. “It’s great, man. There’s a bunch of good riders in our sport, and they deserve some credit, too.” 
   
   Podladtchikov, who grew up in Davos but competed for Russia at the 2006 Turin Games, can sometimes match White’s acrobatics. His Yolo (“You Only Live Once”) flip, 1,440 degrees of rotation that includes two aerial somersaults, was a rare trick that White did not master first. 
   
   Podladtchikov landed it perfectly, anchoring a run that was awarded 94.75 points out of 100. The cheering crowd waved Swiss and Russian flags. Podladtchikov moved to Switzerland from Russia when he was 8, and the merging of time and place hit hard. 
   
   “I love to be here,” he said. “I love to speak Russian. It’s my mother language, and it reminds me of so many things.” 
   
   Continue reading the main story Rank Competitor points ● 1 SUI Iouri Podladtchikov 94.75 ● 2 JPN Ayumu Hirano 93.50 ● 3 JPN Taku Hiraoka 92.25 4th USA Shaun White 90.25 5th SUI David Habluetzel 88.50 6th CHN Zhang Yiwei 87.25 7th CHN Shi Wancheng 81.00 8th SLO Tim-Kevin Ravnjak 72.25 9th AUS Kent Callister 68.50 10th USA Danny Davis 53.00 11th SUI Christian Haller 51.50 12th USA Gregory Bretz 26.50 All Fewer Results Expand Results 
   
   Six riders had a chance to beat Podladtchikov’s score. Davis was one of them. A near-perfect first run was upended by a stumble in the flat portion of the pipe between the 22-foot walls, a choppy and sugary gutter of uneven snow and ice. (Davis blamed it on a “snow snake.”) His second run was doomed from the start, out of balance until he crashed while landing a trick. 
   
   Suspense built with each rider. Hiraoka elevated into second place. The 5-foot-3, 110-pound Hirano is the rare competitor who can launch himself out of the pipe and reach the heights of White, as if filled with helium. His score, 93.5, put him in second place. There was only one competitor left. 
   
   White came to Sochi hoping to win two gold medals, having spent a year preparing for the debut of slopestyle, an event he dominated on the snowboarding circuit a decade ago. But after a couple of days of training on the slopestyle course last week, amid concerns over the size and shapes of the jumps, he pulled out to focus on the halfpipe. 
   
   The American Sage Kotsenburg won the event. 
   
   “The slopestyle course had some issues, and I just felt like my best bet was to focus on the halfpipe,” White said Tuesday. “Then the halfpipe had some issues.” 
   
   The night before the competition, some athletes suggested that the event be postponed because of poor conditions and a lack of practice time. Crews worked overnight honing the shape of the pipe, which tilted downhill for about 250 yards. In the hour before the competition, workers sprinkled salt on its surface to get it to melt slightly and refreeze, and they sprayed it with water from large hoses. The result was not perfection but adequacy. 
   
   A few, like Davis, took pratfalls in the gutter of the pipe. Others flew above its walls and crashed hard on the deck. Qualifications weeded the unlikely podium crashers out of the contest. A temperature close to freezing during the prime-time finals helped keep the pipe intact. 
   
   Afterward, riders were reluctant to place blame on the pipe. 
   
   “Everybody had the same pipe to deal with,” Davis said. 
   
   White looked down at the pipe through his dark goggles. He had mastered the Yolo flip, and sometimes performed it better than Podladtchikov. With the gold medal on the line, he launched himself into the flip on the opposite side from where Podladtchikov performed his. 
   
   White’s board hit the lip of the pipe, bending but not breaking. He somehow stayed on his feet and sped across the pipe for his next trick. By then, his chance at winning a third gold medal was gone. 
   
   “I went for big tricks that only Iouri and myself are doing,” White said. “I could have played it safe, I guess, and tried to get in a decent score, but I really wanted to win. We came here on a mission, and it just wasn’t my night, which is really tough to say. It’s a big night.” ||||| 1 of 35 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Highlights from Day 3 of competition at the 2014 Winter Games View Photos Julia Mancuso wins bronze. U.S. beats Switzerland in women’s hockey. Also, short-track speedskating and curling Caption Julia Mancuso wins bronze. U.S. beats Switzerland in women’s hockey. Also, short-track speedskating and curling Feb. 10, 2014 Julia Mancuso of the U.S. in action during the downhill portion of the super combined ski event, which also includes a slalom run, during day 3 of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games on February 10. Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
   
   Snowboarders at the Olympics at times seem to have a language all their own. But there was no need for a translator Monday because nobody was mincing words: The Sochi halfpipe is substandard, the top riders in the world agreed. 
   
   Just one day before the Olympic halfpipe competition is scheduled to begin, snowboarders criticized the condition of the pipe, and one former gold medal winner even suggested the event be pushed back. 
   
   “Everyone is not happy right now,” said three-time Olympian Hannah Teter, the 2006 gold medal winner in the event. “I saw everyone take a hard fall today. That never happens. . . . They should push it back is what they should do, and fix it so we can showcase snowboarding the way it needs to be showcased. Not as a junk show, which is what it was looking like right now.” 
   
   The men’s halfpipe competition is scheduled for Tuesday night at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park with the women scheduled to compete Wednesday. Officials were planning to work through the night to improve the pipe, after a second straight day of uncharacteristic spills and unrestrained critiques. 
   
   Shaun White, the two-time gold medal winner in the event, didn’t try to hide his frustration following practice Monday night, calling the pipe “disappointing.” 
   
   “It’s hard to get in there and have all the tricks and have everything that you need and not be able to get to the wall,” he said. “I just had a frustrating practice and I’m hoping tomorrow will be better.” 
   
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   Practice Monday was originally scheduled for the morning but was postponed so officials could work on the pipe. Later in the evening, riders said as practice progressed, the transitions grew increasingly bumpy, and the flat surface area between the walls deteriorated. Teter likened it to a mogul field. Many riders had trouble staying upright and gathering momentum between tricks. 
   
   “That’s not what halfpipe is supposed to be like,” Teter said. “People are supposed to be landing their tricks.” 
   
   Snowboarders said the pipe was actually improved from Sunday, the first day of practice. The walls and curves received significant work. One U.S. coach said the warm weather Monday helped the snow stick earlier in the day, but riders said after a single practice run the pipe worsened and snowboarders began to fear what conditions would be like during actual competition. 
   
   American Danny Davis stopped short of calling the course dangerous. “It's just not as fun,” he said. 
   
   With more freestyle events, the Sochi Olympics will look more like the Winter X Games than ever before. (Associated Press) 
   
   Riders say they’ve been told the course will receive further treatment and grooming overnight, but some were openly considering their options after Monday's practice. 
   
   “If all of us got together, and we’re like, ‘We’re not doing it, let’s push it back,’ maybe they would,” Teter said. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen.” 
   
   Teter acknowledged such a protest was unlikely, but she said White’s representatives have expressed concerns. White pulled out of the slopestyle competition last week, calling the course “intimidating” and saying he didn’t want to risk injury before his featured event. While he expressed frustration with the halfpipe course Monday night, he wasn’t certain what changes might occur before the competition begins. 
   
   “I don’t know the exact plan,” White said. “I’m sure there will be some sort of coaches’ meeting or something. I don’t really get involved in that. I’m hoping they can do whatever they can to make it a better pipe. It’s hard to get here and see this and feel the pressure. I don’t know.” 
   
   Under the current conditions, most said they’d have to alter their planned runs. White said he’d have trouble throwing his cab double cork 1440. “I’m hoping for the best,” he said. 
   
   Said Davis: “There’s a bunch of kids who can ride well in these conditions. I’m a little bit worried about myself riding so well in these conditions. Like I said, we’re going to ride it anyway.” 
   
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   After two days of practices, riders say the Sochi Olympics pipe will force all riders to make adjustments. Many competed in a test event here last year and said the pipe was subpar at the time. A year later, it's still noticeably different from what they see in regular competitions. 
   
   “In the U.S., we build the best pipes in the world,” said Peter Foley, the U.S. snowboarding head coach. “We’ve had great contest pipes all year long. . . . That’s the standard; that’s what you like to see.” 
   
   Competing in her fourth Olympics, Kelly Clark has ridden the best halfpipes in the world. Despite the conditions this week, she said the Sochi pipe is actually an improvement over the one in Vancouver four years ago because of its steeper walls and a longer run. Even if conditions aren’t perfect this week, she said the best riders in the world should be good enough to deal with the adversity. 
   
   “If you’re making a mistake, it’s going to be amplified,” said Clark, who won gold at the 2002 Games. “The strongest rider is still going to come out on top.” 
   
   Even though tricks will be thrown and medals handed out, the event deserves better, Teter said, particularly on an Olympic stage with the whole world watching. 
   
   “You want everybody to see snowboarding as it should be, looking phenomenal with everybody doing what they know how to do,” she said. “Hopefully, they can pull it together.”
target: – Snowboarders in Sochi have been raising serious concerns about the state of the Olympic halfpipe, the scene of actual competition today: "Everyone is not happy right now," 2006 US gold medalist Hannah Teter told the Washington Post after yesterday's practice. But that hasn't stopped the event from going forward, the New York Times reports. Qualifying rounds have begun, and officials will decide, based on conditions, whether semifinals and finals should take place tonight as planned. Yesterday, officials were working to improve the halfpipe. Yesterday's practice—postponed from the morning for improvements—didn't inspire confidence among the athletes. "I saw everyone take a hard fall today. That never happens," Teter said. Is it dangerous? "It's just not as fun," says teammate Danny Davis. Athletes said the halfpipe, which Shaun White calls "disappointing," was bumpy, its curvature was off, and the snow was loose; and those who avoided falling yesterday struggled to maintain speed, leading to less aggressive tricks. But the Times notes that halfpipe quality can fluctuate wildly depending on weather conditions and how it's maintained. Still, "this is going to be showcased to billions of people, and we want the best representation of halfpipe snowboarding," Teter says.