He might have finished bottom of the leaderboard in his Olympic debut but the 19-year-old boarder knew he was far from out-classed against the world’s best.
"It was an all-in situation," Melville Ives said.
"It was pretty special. It’s not often so many people land such crazy runs. I wished I could have put my run down as well, but that’s how it goes sometimes."
The young Kiwi landed some big tricks, including huge triple-cork 1440s, only to come unstuck right at the bottom of the halfpipe on the landing of his final trick.
Top qualifier Scotty James (Australia) had predicted before the final that it would be the most competitive Olympic snowboard halfpipe contest he had ever seen, and it proved to be one for the history books.
Progression in the discipline has been rapid. The triple-cork 1440 was landed only by the gold medallist at the 2022 Games; now several riders include it in their repertoire.
Whereas the qualification format only allowed riders two runs to earn their top score, the final was a three-run format with the single best run counting.
This opened the door to even bigger tricks and, with medals on the line, absolutely no holding back.
As expected, the qualifying rounds had only provided a glimpse of the technical riding to come and a hint at what these athletes might have up their sleeves.
It was a stunning opening run for Melville Ives with two landed triple-cork 1440s. He ran out of room on the last hit, clipping the coping of the pipe and going down right at the bottom of the pipe.
Back to the top for run two, and Melville Ives went for the same run. He again landed the big tricks, but found himself deep in the flat bottom of the halfpipe and went down on the landing of the fifth trick.
Looking composed and determined for his third and final attempt, he landed deep on the fourth hit, losing momentum and unable to attempt the fifth and final hit.
Asked if he could simply have done with a bigger halfpipe, Melville Ives said: "I mean, I landed the whole run in training.
"I just went way bigger in the competition, so I just ran out of halfpipe. I’ll have to go a bit smaller next time."
The powerhouse Japanese team proved the ones to beat, denied a clean sweep of the podium only by Australian five-time Olympian Scotty James, who claimed silver.
Yuto Totsuka’s gold medal-winning run featured back-to-back 1440s at the top of the pipe, followed by a 900 into a 1080 and finished with a 1260.
Pushing hard for the Olympic gold that has so far eluded him in this discipline, James raised the bar on his final attempt, increasing the rotation to a 1660, but was unable to land it cleanly.
Ryusei Yamada claimed bronze.
That was Melville Ives’ only event at Milano Cortina but he will get to watch twin brother Fin in the freeski halfpipe on Thursday night. — Allied Media
Men’s final: Cam Melville Ives 43.00, 12th.
Freeski big air
Women’s qualifying: Ruby Star Andrews 92.75, DNQ; Sylvia Trotter 121.00, DNQ.
7.30am: Men’s qualifying (Luca Harrington, Ben Barclay, Lucas Ball)
| 1. Norway | 10 | 3 | 7 | 20 |
| 2.Italy | 6 | 3 | 9 | 18 |
| 3. USA | 5 | 8 | 4 | 17 |
| 4. Austria | 4 | 6 | 3 | 13 |
| 5. France | 4 | 6 | 2 | 12 |
| 6. Germany | 4 | 5 | 4 | 13 |
| 7. Netherlands | 4 | 4 | 1 | 9 |
| 7. Sweden | 4 | 4 | 1 | 9 |
| 9. Switzerland | 4 | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| 10. Japan | 3 | 4 | 8 | 15 |
| 21. New Zealand | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
