Scotty James was close, so, so close to an Olympic gold that would have elevated him to sporting immortality.
After two runs, James led the field, topping the scoring, despite Ayumu Hirano nailing a mythical triple cork in his second run.
When Hirano's score was revealed it sent a ripple of disapproval through the crowd, some of whom even started to boo.
But Hirano — unbowed by being given a score 0.75 points less than James — instead sent down an even more spectacular run as the final rider of the day.
Seeing that one triple cork was not enough, Hirano incredibly threw in two consecutive triples on his final run to give the judges no option but to hand him a deserved gold medal.
James said he never watches his opponent's runs and this was no different, but he must have been the only one who wasn't gazing up through the pipe at the Genting Snow Park, watching on in awe as the diminutive Japanese rider re-wrote what was possible on a snowboard.
"I knew what he was capable of and he landed a fantastic run," James said of the now three-time Olympic medallist.
"I definitely was expecting him to deliver something really good."
Australia's sixth-place finisher, Val Guseli, was more effusive.
"It was beautiful," the 16-year-old said.
Hirano's run was insane, defying logic to risk everything with one of the most dangerous tricks ever attempted — one that athletes describe as being one without any room for error — not once, but twice in a single run.
The halfpipe final has become one of the blue ribband events of the Winter Games – the mix zone in Zhangjiakou was more packed than for any other event so far and the drama was played out in front of the biggest crowd we've seen.
All of the talk beforehand had surrounded the triple cork, and James's continued assertion that there was more to halfpipe boarding than just landing one of those.
"There's a lot of elements that contribute to doing well on the halfpipe other than a triple cork," James said.
In a sense he was right — Hirano needed two of them — after failing to sufficiently impress the judges to send him past James's own brilliantly technical second run.
"My first combination [a switch backside 1260 into a switch frontside 1440] is definitely one of the more technical ones, so I was really happy to open up on that," James said.
It was a superb run and fed into what James had been talking about pre-event, asking for those hugely technical tricks and skills to be rewarded.
And he was obviously pleased with that score.
After completing his run, James was fired up, roaring his delight and punching the top of his board, sparked by a simple pep talk from brother Sean at the top of the run.
However, James maintains that, if he had executed his third run correctly, Hirano might still not have been able to surpass him, regardless of how many triple corks he put together.
"I was happy with my run but adding in what we did and executing as well as I would have liked to, I think I would have come very close," James said.
"Whether I would have stood on top or just behind, like I did, who knows? It's hard to say."
Guseli agreed, saying James's score would have been "very, very close", but his comments about the triple cork were perhaps, more revealing.
"I'd better learn those tricks," he said, simply.
James did acknowledge that the triple cork is the future, saying that he has a cab triple cork of his own that he was ready to use here in Zhangjiakou, but felt conditions were not quite right for him to attempt it, even with an Olympic gold medal on the line, especially given his physical attributes.
"Obviously, the triple cork will be something for me to work on a little bit more [and] develop," he said.
"I've done them and I feel really good on them.
"Valentino and I, we're tall, the risk and margin for error is even smaller for us and we have to be absolutely en pointe to really compete with the guys.
"The triple cork, it's kind of the pinnacle, unless we build a bigger halfpipe, it's a little bit hard to really push much more than a triple cork because we can't go high enough."
He said that, because there were a few people crashing in the same areas, there was too much at risk in attempting a triple cork.
"A lot of people were crashing in that spot and [a triple cork is] not really something you want to mess around with.
"It's quite scary, very difficult, so we decided to add another element to my run."
James, who now has a wedding to plan with his fiancée Chloe Stroll, appeared content with his silver.
"I tried my best, I worked really hard to be here and what happens, happens," James said.
"I'm just happy with how I rode today and that's the most important thing for me, personally.
"I just need to finish off my collection in the pool room now. I've got my bronze, got the silver, and four years from now we'll do our best to finish it off."
