Watch This Olympic Snowboarder Set a World Record by Jumping 24 Feet Off the Halfpipe
For reference, that's like jumping over four refrigerators stacked on top of one another.
Japanese snowboarder Kaishu Hirano didn't snag a medal of his own in the men's halfpipe final in Beijing. He did, however, walk away with a world record.
During his third and final competition run, Kaishu soared 24'4'' off the halfpipe. It doesn't just sound impressive, either. It is.
For reference, that's like jumping over four refrigerators stacked on top of one another—and happens to be the highest any man has ever gone on a backside air, Insider reports. The halfpipe is also 22 feet deep, which means Hirano flew more than 44 feet off the ground while at his peak.
So why didn't the 19-year-old Olympian medal after his record-breaking finish? He struggled on his first run earning a lower score, and his two subsequent runs didn't get much better, with crashes on both, so he finished ninth, despite his new world record.
And while he didn't medal in Beijing, the professional snowboarder earned a bronze in the men's superpipe at the 2022 Winter X Games earlier this year.
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