There were tears. Lots of tears. Some laughs and plenty of smiles, but mostly tears, as the greatest snowboarder of all time, Shaun White, bowed out of competition after the snowboard halfpipe final.
"I can't believe it's over," a teary White said in a packed mixed zone, where everyone wanted a piece of the retiring legend.
"It's wild."
It was wild then, but it has been a wild ride from the off.
White has appeared in five Olympic Games, starting in 2006 at Torino, where he won the first of three gold medals, with Friday's fourth place matching his performance in Sochi.
He also has 13 snowboarding X-Games gold medals, plus two in skateboarding – a sport he tried to pick back up for its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games, although he did not qualify – but his legacy can't even be measured in weight of medals alone.
No, his legacy was there for us all to see in Friday's extraordinary, historic halfpipe final.
For so long, he set the standard to which all others were and still are measured.
Now, they've finally surpassed him.
"It makes me proud; it makes me pretty emotional," White said.
"Everybody was asking me what my legacy in this sport has been and, I'm like, you're watching it.
"These younger riders, they have been on my heels every step of the way. To see them finally surpass me is, I think, deep down what I always wanted, you know, to be beaten."
One of those athletes, Australia's silver medallist Scotty James, shared an emotional moment with White in the mix zone.
"He's dedicated his life, like I have, to what we do here and it was really cool to just have a moment with him," James said.
"Obviously we're competitors and when we're standing up there [at the top of the pipe] it's game on and you don't really think about anything other than what you're doing.
"And then when great moments happen and things start to unfold, like today, I wanted to get a moment to talk to him and just say 'thanks'.
"He was a big inspiration to me when I was younger. To compete here in the finals of an Olympic Games with him in it is pretty special."
White, for his part, said that he was so proud of the "incredible" riders who finished ahead of him and that all of them had come up to him to say a few words.
"All my fellow competitors were so kind," White said.
"A lot of them patted me on the back and told me that the tricks in the sport wouldn't be where it is today without my pushing and I want to thank them for having me and supported me and let me do my thing."
And that thing was spectacular.
White genuinely innovated in a sport that has grown with him, developing his Tomahawk trick (a double McTwist 1260, which contains three-and-a-half twists and two flips) that he debuted at the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
In the final, the competition was outdone by yet another innovation, the triple cork, that Ayumu Hirano performed to such great effect – twice – to surpass the score of James in his final run.
"I feel it for Scotty, I know he's happy with second but I know he wanted gold and to watch Ayumu just crush it, that was the run of a lifetime for him and to nail it, I'm so proud for him," White said.
To nail a run when it counted has been White's trademark – including at the last Games when he relegated Hirano into silver with a sublime run that featured back-to-back 1440s.
That he wasn't able to summon that one last piece of magic was as much down to the skill of third-place finisher Jan Scherrer as White's own weary, 35-year-old body — a body that has been battered and bruised and stitched and iced throughout his entire career.
That Hirano emulated White to win his first Olympic gold continued the theme that the American was finally passing on the baton – especially as that triple cork was something that White had experimented with all the way back in 2013.
Then, he suffered injuries so bad that he required hospitalisation after failing to land it on snow and shelved plans to continue his development of the trick.
His young competitors though have moved on, pushing those boundaries ever upwards.
Where next for White? He said in the mix zone that he wants to grow his own brand and start a family but does not want to step away from snowboarding completely.
"I don't want to beat these guys anymore. I want to sponsor them," he said.
"Not to sign them, but to help their career and help guide [them, using] my experiences and what I've learned.
"I would be honoured to get that phone call from whoever to support and be a part of this sport in any way that's given me so much."
The end, when it came, might not have been what White had hoped for, crashing out on his final run and finishing just outside the medal places – but from a legend of a sport that has been given so much, White just had one thing more to say.
"Snowboarding, thank you. It's been the love of my life."
