While his older brother Eiju gained a spot in the final, it was 12-year old Ayumu Hirano that scored most of the press from the Burton US Open halfpipe cometition, held at Vermont last weekend.
Ayumu wasn’t the only kid of his age to hit the pipe, but he was by far the best. Standing barely 5 feet tall, the Japanese wunderkind was soaring out of the pipe with bags of style. He may not have qualified for the final, but that didn’t stop him from snatching a sly run or two between judged runs. The crowd were impressed, as were his sponsors at Burton, who posted this video of their newest pipe prodigy:
Expect to see big things from Ayumu in the future.